The Mistletoe Incident
by Old English D
Summary: Perry has a regrettable experience with mistletoe and Della goes on vacation.  No other way to put it.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Harvey Sayers had known Perry Mason since grade school, and considered him his best friend. They had attended the same grade and high schools, the same college, the same law school, and after Perry's brief stopover in Sacramento after passing the bar, both now practiced law in Los Angeles.

Harvey specialized in divorce, which had come in handy considering he had three failed marriages under his belt at a relatively young age. He was newly engaged for the second time following his third divorce, his first fiancée having returned his ring a mere three months prior after being presented with a pre-nuptial agreement penned by the ninety-three year old patriarch of the family. Harvey believed in the institution of marriage despite his specialty, and liked being married. Unfortunately, because he liked to be married, he tended to jump into relationships with a singleness of mind. And because he came from great family wealth and maintained a thriving practice, it was not difficult to find women willing to marry him.

Before he took up marriage as a pastime, Harvey was a man's man – hunting, fishing, and sports events filled his days, and clubs rife with pliable and pliant women filled his nights. When Perry first arrived in Los Angeles after leaving Sacramento, Harvey took him around all the best spots and neither of them ever wanted for female companionship. However, when he hired a new secretary, his night club crawling ceased instantly as he plunged headlong into the first serious affair of his life. The relationship ultimately failed on both professional and personal fronts, and it was only months later that he married for the first time. His wife turned out not to be as much like his former secretary as he'd thought, and the marriage collapsed after four volatile years. Two more short marriages and seven engagements of even shorter duration followed. Through all of his divorces and broken engagements, the men he had met in college and law school had stood by him, consoling him, blaming the women and not him for each failure in a great show of male bonding.

In an effort to remain connected with the friends who meant so much to him, Harvey began hosting a holiday 'kick-off' party the first Saturday of December. Held at his family's obscenely large and ornate estate, it was a reunion of sorts, a chance for everyone to be together again and catch up on each other's lives. Harvey insisted upon formality in dress and decor, men in dinner jackets or full-out tuxedoes, women in sparkly cocktail dresses and jewels, attended by waiters garbed in white gloves, black ties and tails, food and drink abundant and perfectly presented.

This year his hostess was Pamela, the second fiancée in four months to be introduced to his supportive, put-upon friends. It was trial by fire for Pamela, new to her role as Harvey's future bride and thrust into planning his annual soiree as well as a New Year's Eve wedding, and she had not fared well. Harvey had been forced to call on the one person who could straighten out the mess Pamela had made of the party plans, someone who could quietly and efficiently repair botched preparations. That person was Della Street, his good friend Perry's exceptionally capable secretary, and Harvey was deeply in her debt for guaranteeing the party would not be a flop this year.

* * *

><p>"What time are you picking me up for Harvey's party?" Della Street efficiently closed her notebook and slid her pencil behind her ear. She had made the last confirming phone call to the caterers and small orchestra for Harvey's party earlier in the day so she could devote her entire attention to catching up on correspondence and supervising Mary on two briefs in varying stages of completion.<p>

Perry Mason leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette, relieved and relaxed that another pile of important correspondence had been dispatched. His exploits in the courtroom were becoming rather well-known not just in Los Angeles, but in the entire state of California, and every day letters arrived requesting his services, his time, a speech, an article for some publication or another. Della weeded out as much as she could, but when Senators, Congressmen, philanthropists, and wealthy denizens of society with highly recognizable names wrote letters, she insisted that he answer them personally.

"I was thinking six-thirty. The party officially starts at seven, and that should put us there around seven-fifteen. Fashionably late, I believe the term is. One doesn't want to be the first or last to arrive at a party, does one?"

She regarded him with an amused look. "No, one doesn't."

"And I will come up to your apartment to collect you. No standing at the curb or in the lobby, young lady."

Her amused look became a smile. "Yes, sir. I'll be ready."

"I must admit that I look forward to Harvey's party every year," he mused. He stared at the wisp of smoke curling from the end of the cigarette. "It's nice to have everyone in the same place at the same time."

"Why Chief, I do believe you are getting sentimental on me."

He laughed. "When you get to be my age, you'll understand. Most of us have known each other since college, and I've known Harvey most of my life. I look at them and remember a carefree time before crime and murder befouled my youthful exuberance."

Della laughed. "I've heard stories, Chief. Your youthful exuberance is famously intact."

Perry frowned. "Who's been telling you stories?"

She stood, shook out her skirt and smiled enigmatically. "I could never betray a confidence."

"If it was Harvey, I can tell you a thing or three about him. Or four or five."

She pushed the chair she used when taking dictation close to the side of his desk. "I will not bargain with you." She held up her hand as he opened his mouth to speak. "And, I will not tell you what stories I was told."

"That's condemning a man without a defense, Della. We fight against that every day."

"There was much corroborating testimony."

"Ah, but did you weigh the veracity of the witnesses against that testimony?"

"Are you repudiating your friends?"

"Not at all. I'm a realist. I know those jokers would say anything to impress a pretty woman."

She smiled. "Did you say that to impress me?"

"Not at all. You are a very pretty woman. I was merely stating a fact."

She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Weren't you ever told that pretty is as pretty does?"

An odd expression crossed her face and she shifted her eyes from his to the floor. "Only every waking moment."

"What's that?"

She looked up at him, a forced smile on her lips. "Nothing."

"Della, if what I said upset you –"

"It didn't upset me, Chief," she said hastily, wanting to recapture their easy banter. "It just brought back a childhood memory. It's nothing."

He leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette. "Why don't you think you're pretty, Della? Because you are. Actually, you are quite beautiful."

The same odd expression appeared on her face. "This is hardly a proper topic of conversation for the office, Chief."

"I wish you would stop deflecting. Tell me." He could tell she was uncomfortable with the shift in their conversation. She had imparted very little about her childhood. He sensed it had been far from idyllic, but aside from hints such as this, she wouldn't tell him anything.

She shrugged. "My grandmother used to say that to me. She was overly concerned with looks."

"Then she must have been very pleased with yours."

She smiled at him wistfully for a few seconds. "You are awfully nice."

He smiled at her wistfully for a few seconds. "And you're not going to tell me a thing, are you?"

She abruptly turned on her heel and headed toward her office. "Nope," she confirmed.

He chuckled. "All right, mysterious lady. How about we knock off right at five, have cocktails, and then pay a visit to Luigi for some eggplant _parmigiana_?"

She stopped at the connecting door, her hand on the knob. "That sounds wonderful, but I'm afraid I have an appointment tonight." Estelle had begged her to help with a last-minute show scheduled for another function hosted by the Beverly Hills Ladies Society. The promise of another dress as payment for her services had been too tempting and Della had agreed.

"Della, are you all right?"

"I'm perfectly fine. Why do you ask?"

"All these 'appointments'…are you sick?" Perversely he hoped she would say yes, because the alternative pained him too much to think about.

"I'm not sick," she said softly. "I told you I have a life outside the office, Chief. Right now that life is a bit hectic. And I made it even more hectic by deciding to take a vacation."

He hoped his glum attitude wasn't apparent on his face. He knew rationally she had a right to her privacy, but he'd thought that after Thanksgiving, after she'd allowed him to remove her stockings while they lay in front of the fire at his apartment, she would open up a bit more. She was so honest in the moment, but when it came to her personal life, she was still guarded and closed off. "I'm glad you're not sick," he said lamely, not wanting to think about her being away from him.

"Chief, don't pout. Some day I'll tell you all about these appointments. Right now, I don't want to discuss them."

He watched as she slipped through the door to her office. He imagined her clearing the clutter off her desk, covering her typewriter, opening the bottom drawer of the desk and removing her handbag, graceful and efficient, no wasted movements. Since Thanksgiving she had been more accepting of his affections, and a bit bolder in her own, seeking his touch, her smile shy yet natural. It had been a wonderful week, busy but not stressful, which allowed for long lunches together, a night of dancing, and even a movie. He wouldn't say they were dating, because they knew each other too well to use that conventional word. A more concise definition of their current state would be they were sharing their lives outside the office, expanding their friendship, exploring feelings that went beyond employer/employee. Both were anxious about upsetting their professional relationship by introducing a personal relationship, each advancing then retreating to gauge how that advancement would fit in their daily life. There was so much to consider – they were a team, they worked exceptionally well together, and clients benefitted greatly from their loyalty and dedication to one another.

Perry knew without a doubt he loved her. He had very possibly fallen in love with her during her interview, while he was still involved with Laura Cavanaugh. Her calmness soothed him, her wit and intelligence pleased him. Within weeks it had become clear he would not follow Laura to Denver, but would remain in Los Angeles to ply his trade as only he could, with Della at his side. He would be lost without her. She recognized in him things he didn't know he possessed, didn't even know he was capable of. What he felt for her went far beyond anything he'd ever experienced with a woman. He wanted to please her, to make her happy, to take care of her. He'd never thought about marriage, having a home or a family. But he thought about those things now when he thought about Della.

His reverie was interrupted by the opening of the connecting door. "Everyone has gone home, Chief. The office is all buttoned up for the weekend." She moved toward the round conference table near the sliding terrace doors and removed her coat from the back of a chair, where it had been since their return from lunch.

Perry jumped up and hurried to her side, taking the coat and assisting her into the lightweight swing coat. His hands gripped her shoulders gently, and he leaned down to nuzzle her neck, below her left ear. "You'll need a heavier coat than this where you're going," he said. "And boots."

"I'll just have to shiver a bit," she replied, tilting her head to the side to allow his lips better access to the slender column of her neck, touched by his concern for her. "A new coat is most certainly not in my budget."

He turned her swiftly in his arms and kissed her quickly. "Then maybe you should just stay here where it's warm."

"It gets cold here, too Chief. At night sometimes I think I'm back home, except without all the snow and ice. By the way, weak argument, Counselor. I'm still going."

"It was only a half-hearted argument. I know you need to see your family. But I'm going to miss you horribly. I'm going to give everyone an extra vacation bonus and close the office. Work isn't any fun without you."

She pulled back in his embrace slightly to look up into his eyes. "I'll only be gone a few days. You'll be fine. I'll organize everything on a chart, and if you'd let Sally – "

He abruptly released her. "No, I don't want a temporary secretary coming in here. I'm closing the office."

"Don't be stubborn about this, Chief. You have appointments set already." She glanced at her watch. "Oh shoot, I'm late. We'll discuss this more later. See you tomorrow at six-thirty sharp so we can be on time to be fashionably late."

He rolled his eyes in response. "I was going to offer to drive you to your appointment, but I don't think I will now."

She reached for his arm and squeezed it. "Thank you anyway, Chief, but no. You can escort me to the taxi stand, however. Get your coat and turn out the lights."

They rode down the elevator in companionable silence, Della's arm linked through his as she leaned against him slightly, camouflaged by passengers who embarked from lower floors. He escorted her through the exiting office crowd to the crowded taxi stand, his hand firm and possessive at the small of her back.

"You need a car," he said abruptly.

She laughed. "If a coat isn't in my budget, Chief, a car certainly isn't. I manage quite nicely with public transportation and taxis."

"Then I'll raise your salary. I don't like the idea of you out on 'appointments' and having to take taxis or busses everywhere. I'd feel better if you had your own car."

Her gloved finger dug into his arm. "You pay me plenty, Chief," she said quietly, "more than a legal secretary of my experience should make. I wasn't fishing for a raise."

"I know you weren't. I just worry about you being out at night, taking a bus or spending money on a taxi."

A taxi slid into position at the curb and Perry reached out to open the door. Della climbed in and flashed him a smile. "It's nice that you worry about me, Chief, but I'm fine. See you tomorrow." She blew him a saucy kiss.

He remained standing at the curb as the taxi merged with the steady stream of Friday evening traffic, a thoughtful look on his face.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Della had originally planned to wear a blue dress with an overlay of black lace and spaghetti straps to Harvey's party, but at the last minute changed her mind. Instead she chose an olive green tulle fit and flair dress with winding gold lame' leaf and vine appliques and a gold lame' waistband. It accentuated her tiny waist and turned her eyes a stunning shade of gold. Estelle had loaned her the delicate gold vine and leaf necklace, bracelet, and earring set she had paired with her creation, and satin pumps and a satin clutch, both dyed a slightly deeper shade of olive than the dress, completed her ensemble. Evelyn had worked magic with her hair, taming the curls into sleek waves that framed her face elegantly. She thought she looked outrageous.

Perry was speechless when she opened the door. Yesterday she had been all business in her brown suit, cream blouse, and pearls; still feminine and exceptionally attractive, albeit proper and a bit conservative, as befitted a legal secretary. Tonight she was ravishing, her beauty unabashedly on full display.

He finally found his voice. "You certainly do make that dress look nice, Della."

Her smile was wide and brilliant. "I believe that is the best compliment I've ever received. Thank you, Chief."

"Shall we go? By my estimation, we are right on time for being fashionably late."

"You're really getting a kick out of this fashionably late concept, aren't you?" She turned to allow him to enfold her in a gold lame' wrap made from the same bolt of cloth as the waistband of her dress, and leaning into a quick embrace.

"I'm looking forward to making an entrance with you on my arm. You are absolutely stunning, Della. Are you going to be warm enough?" He asked as he closed her apartment door and made sure it was locked.

"We're going directly to the car and then from the car directly into a warm house. I won't be cold." His words made her warm enough to withstand even the coldest temperature.

He looked down at her with the same thoughtful expression he'd had the night before as the elevator doors slid shut. "May I kiss you?"

Her face registered a bit of surprise. "You may."

He leaned down and kissed her tenderly, his lips soft and sure. The kiss was almost reverent at first, then more ardent as the tip of his tongue flicked at her lips and she allowed him access to her mouth. Only their mouths touched, their bodies separated by several inches. Perry broke contact first, drawing in a shaky breath.

"I've never seen anything as lovely as you," he said quietly. One hand came up to brush against her jawline. "I'm the luckiest man on earth to be your escort."

She slipped her hand into his and squeezed it lightly. "I'm pretty darn lucky myself," she replied softly. "I've been looking forward to this night."

"So have I." His eyes gazed at her with a mixture of tenderness and desire that sent a shiver through her.

* * *

><p>Their arrival at the Sayers family estate was everything Perry had hoped for. Most of his friends had already arrived, and when he escorted Della into the ballroom, all conversation ceased momentarily. Then everyone surged forward to greet them. He noted the unanimous admiration for Della, how she gracefully handled compliments and quickly turned those compliments around to include everyone present. She had a sincere and natural interest in people, and as everyone became reacquainted, Perry found himself separated from her and backed into a corner. Emory Markle, a tall, thin insurance expert he'd met through Harvey in college, swooped down on her and guided her to the opposite corner of the room.<p>

Perry maintained polite small talk with Jim and Anita Brandis, congratulating them on the imminent arrival of their sixth child, until they wandered away to greet Frank and Jory Heartwell who were the last guests to arrive and who completed the guest list. After quick handshakes and effusive slaps to shoulders, the McGreavey twins Fletcher and Everett moved on toward the bar, dragging him with them. They sipped cocktails and chatted about their respective practices – Everett and Fletcher were both attorneys as well – and ten minutes passed before the twins wandered off and he could search out Della in the far corner. What he saw put a frown on his face.

"If it bothers you that much," Paul Drake said stepping up behind him, "go over and drag her away from Emory."

Perry hadn't seen Paul when they first arrived. Paul's services as a private detective were used by almost every one of Perry's old friends, and Harvey had begun including him on the guest list several years prior.

"Excuse me? What bothers me?" Perry Mason swung his gaze away from the corner of the ballroom where Della and Emory Markle were engaged in an animated conversation, her wide-spaced hazel eyes sparkling with indulgent delight.

"Emory flirting with Della, you big jerk." Paul replied. "Standing here tossing silent daggers at him isn't going to make you feel better or stop him from monopolizing her attention. He's had a crush on Della ever since the party last year and since he isn't dating Yvonne anymore…"

It took all of Perry's strength not to return his gaze to where Della stood in the corner with Emory, who was standing too close, leaning down to her from his exceptional height, an expression of intent interest visible from across the room. Perry took a gulp of his drink and fished in his pocket for a cigarette. Damn. His case and lighter were in Della's evening bag, which was currently tucked in the crook of her elbow. He needed a cigarette. He needed another drink. And he needed Emory to get the hell away from Della.

Perry shrugged his shoulders with what he hoped was nonchalance. "I wasn't aware of that fact."

"She dumped him about two weeks before Thanksgiving. There seems to be a lot of that going around." Gwen, his most recent girlfriend, had parted ways with him just two days earlier. "Emory didn't bring a date tonight either."

Perry shrugged again. "That's too bad," he commented blandly.

Paul Drake gave him a disgusted look. "Don't pull that unconcerned crap with me, pal. The tantrum in my office over Joanne and her reporter boyfriend confirmed my suspicion you've been messing around with Della for a long time. You two generate enough steam between you to operate a Turkish bath. There's no denying it."

"Be nice, Paul, that's a lady you're talking about."

"You've gotten sloppy at covering up the office clinches, and everyone can see it's killing you that Emory dragged her into the corner the instant you escorted her into the ballroom. If it's that serious between you two, go claim your woman."

Perry smiled enigmatically and drained his cocktail. "Can't a guy clinch with his secretary on occasion without it being serious?"

Paul shook his head. "Della isn't a casual clincher. Believe me, I tried everything with her and got absolutely nowhere. Now I know why."

He could have done without that confession. His eyes seemed to have a will of their own and wandered back to where Della was still listening to Emory Markle's exploits in insurance. He really needed to get her out of the office more often if she found Emory's stories so fascinating.

"You're doing it again," Paul observed drily. "Are you worried about Emory beating your time? If it isn't Emory, it might be Fletch or Everett or even Art who goes after her. None of them brought dates and since Della is just your secretary and a convenient companion..."

Perry frowned again. It hadn't registered with him until Paul pointed out how many of his friends and associates were unattached. Only two were married, and Harvey was recently engaged for the second time following his third divorce, but there were seven more or less eligible single men aside from him attending the gathering. They couldn't all think Della was fair game. This was the second year she had accompanied him to Harvey's holiday kick-off party, and she had attended other dinner parties with him since being introduced into his circle of friends the previous year.

Paul nodded his head toward the McGreavey brothers' approach. "Looks like Fletch and Everett are preparing an assault on Emory's flank."

Dammit, Perry thought. If his knuckleheaded, adolescent group of buddies couldn't scare up dates for themselves, he sure as hell wasn't going to let them steal away his.

"I'm going to let you in on a little secret, Paul. That lovely lady," he nodded his head in Della's direction, "is my date. And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to rescue her from actuarial hell." He set his cocktail glass down on a table and headed across the room toward the corner where Emory had his hand on Della's shoulder, leaning toward her with amorous intent.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Emory," Perry boomed, slapping the tall, thin insurance man on the back and with a smooth maneuver removing his hand from Della's shoulder, "it's so nice to see you upright, buddy. Charted out any undesirable events lately?"

"As a matter of fact, I just finished a chart on the probability of famous criminal attorneys meeting their demise at the hands of old friends during holiday parties," Emory shot back.

Perry merely smiled and circled Della's shoulders with his arm while she stifled a laugh behind the pretense of a cough. "That had to be fun for you."

"It was a laugh a minute," Emory agreed. "Say Perry, I have an idea. Why don't you crawl back to your corner with Paul while Della and I continue our conversation?"

"I have a better idea," Perry replied with an edge of steel to his voice, "Why don't you stay here and talk to Fletch and Everett while Della and I make a serious dent in the shrimp cocktail?"

"I have an even better idea," Della piped up. "Why don't you all stay here talking so I don't have to share the shrimp with any of you?" She ducked from beneath Perry's arm and moved with an enticing swing to her hips toward the appetizer table at the opposite end of the ballroom.

Emory sighed. "Now look what you did, Perry." He watched Della's retreating figure with longing.

"Yeah, Perry, why did you scare her away before Fletch and I had a chance to talk with her?" Everett McGreavey complained.

Perry stared at the trio of men he considered friends, dumbfounded. "Do you mind if I spend time with the lady _**I**_ brought? If you're so starved for female companionship you should have brought your own dates."

"That was harsh, Perry, considering that Yvonne just tore out Emory's heart and stomped on it," Fletcher McGreavey chastised him.

"Thanks for bringing it up, Fletch," Emory griped. "I hadn't thought about it for a whole fifteen minutes. Della had just about restored my soul as well as my faith in the female gender before her clod of a boss horned in."

Perry opened his mouth to say something, closed it, shook his head, and turned away to catch up to Della.

* * *

><p>His fingers circled her wrist as she reached to pluck a shrimp from the mountain of crushed ice. "Save some for me."<p>

She didn't look at him. "Do you think it's wise to stand between me and shrimp?"

He released her wrist. "Point well taken."

"What was that all about back there?"

He grabbed a plate and without much discrimination began loading it with appetizers. "It was about me being overly possessive of you and thinking you needed to be rescued from the stultifying world of actuaries."

"For your information, Emory didn't once mention actuarial science. We were having a perfectly delightful conversation about you and a certain blonde named Joanne." She grabbed a sterling silver appetizer fork and a folded linen napkin from the end of the table before finally facing him.

"I'll kill the son of a –" he cut himself off and glared at her. "You looked like you were enjoying the conversation."

"I was. He's very surprised you didn't bring Joanne tonight because it was obvious the two of you had an undeniable chemistry together. I was stringing him along. I didn't need to be rescued." She speared a shrimp with her fork and contemplated it for a few seconds before taking a lusty bite.

Perry loved to watch her eat. She enjoyed food and savored every morsel, unlike so many women who denied themselves in favor of their figures. "You realize he's got a crush on you," he told her. He wanted to kiss her, taste the pungent shrimp on her lips, the heat of horseradish sauce on her tongue.

"He's envious of you," she countered. "He's lonely and a bit odd, and he keeps himself at a distance from the rest of the group. He doesn't have your confidence or commanding persona, and even though he excels at it, he's embarrassed by his job. Your success, Harvey's money, Art's looks," she smiled mischievously at him, "intimidate him. It doesn't help that he towers above everyone and weighs only slightly more than the average woman."

"He has always been on the perimeter of things, more of our mascot than a member of the gang," Perry mused, struck by how she had summed up Emory so accurately. "But it doesn't excuse him from having a conversation like that with you." The subject of Joanne and the photographs were still a mite touchy between them.

"No, it doesn't," she said, her hand moving to the lapel of his dinner jacket and smoothing an imaginary pucker in the material. "But it does give you a reason for not killing him. I feel sorry for him, and he's harmless. I can handle him."

He covered her hand with his where it rested on his chest and smiled. "I suspect you can handle just about anything, Della, but once in awhile could you play into my over-inflated male ego?"

Her smile in return was dazzling. "If I did that, you might think you were actually in control of the situation, and I suspect that would not be in my best interest."

Perry's smile widened into a grin and he chuckled as she withdrew her hand from beneath his, turned, and made her way to where the only two married women in attendance were huddled over the latest pictures of their children. He remained standing next to the buffet table watching her, enchanted by how easily she moved among his friends, from the overly ardent attentions of Emory to the foreign world of motherhood occupied by Anita Brandis and Marjory Heartwell, confident and gracious in any combination of personalities.

Just as Perry was about to turn away from admiring Della in her breathtaking dress and rejoin the jokers at the opposite end of the ballroom, Art Emmelander appeared from behind Jory Heartwell. He waved a stick above her head from which something green and leafy dangled at the end of a piece of string, and kissed her cheek with a resounding smack. He moved behind Anita and repeated his actions while all three women laughed at his antics.

Something in Art's eyes made Perry take a few steps toward the three ladies. Art held the stick, from which it was now obvious mistletoe dangled, over Della's head. But instead of the comical cheek smack dispensed to Jory and Anita, Art circled Della's shoulders with one arm, bent her backward, gave a maniacal laugh, and planted a full-on buss to her lips. After righting her again, he ducked behind Jory and disappeared into the group of tuxedoed men standing several feet away.

Startled by Art's effusive kiss, Della dabbed at her mouth with the linen napkin and excused herself from Jory and Anita to head Perry off from searching out Art. She had seen him from the corner of her eye step toward her as Art went in for the kiss, and the last thing she wanted was for him to cause a scene.

"Buy me a drink?" She asked, taking hold of his arm and pulling him toward the bar.

"Later, after I strangle Art," he replied grimly. "He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"Of course not. It was just a silly mistletoe kiss."

"Like hell it was just a silly kiss! Where did he get the idea he could –"

Her fingers tightened on his arm. "Chief, you're doing it again," she interrupted. "It's a party, please don't make more of it than it was. You know Art. One cocktail and he's cooked."

"He's behaving like a twelve year old. Mistletoe on a string at a formal cocktail party! Where did he get the idea that was acceptable?"

"Chief, please just relax and enjoy the party. It's over and done with and I'm okay with it."

"What if I'm not okay with it?" While he admired her spunk, how she dealt with things and parceled them out as 'over and done with', he wasn't ready to let go of what liberties Art had taken.

She reached for a champagne cocktail from a tray at the end of the bar and took a sip before answering. "I'm not your property," she said.

He blinked. "That's not – I don't think that, Della. I simply didn't like the way Art treated you. I would be this incensed if he had done it to Anita or Jory."

"I appreciate that, Chief, honestly I do. But I don't need to you to defend my honor over a party gag. Please just drop it."

He didn't and couldn't agree with her. Sometimes her independent streak flew in the face of chivalry, and he was helpless in stating his case. These were people he considered his best friends. If they couldn't be trusted, who could he trust? This was the second year in a row he'd brought Della to the holiday party. She had attended every party, every dinner, every activity with him he hadn't attended alone for the past year. Surely they should know by now he considered Della more than his secretary. He shouldn't have to tell them. "Della – "

"Kisssssseeeee time!" Art popped up from behind the bar and dangled the mistletoe over Della's head.

There was a smattering of laughter in the ballroom as the sprig of mistletoe danced on the end of the string above Della's head.

"Kissssseee, kisssssee, Perry!" Art moved from behind the bar to stand at Della's side. Her look of dismay did nothing to deter his antics. "Kissssssee the girl, Perry."

Della swung her gaze back to Perry just as he took a step toward her. Lord, he was going to do it. In front of all these people, he was going to put their fledgling romance on display.

But she was wrong.

His arm shot out and he decked Art with a single punch to the nose.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It perhaps was a good thing that Art Emmelander had imbibed a bit too much in the short time between the official start time of the party and the moment Perry laid him out on the floor. He saw stars, but the alcohol must be acting as an anesthetic because he didn't feel a thing. There was no blood, for which he was grateful, but he was still very concerned about his nose and the possibility of it being broken. He couldn't have a broken nose! How could Perry have hit him in the face? Hell, how could Perry have hit him at all? He was still too groggy to voice his thoughts, and shaking his head to clear them hurt too much. He settled for glaring at Perry Mason, the friend he had known since college, with whom he'd always had a convivial relationship.

Pamela, Harvey's fiancée, a nurse who worked the emergency room of a local hospital, jumped immediately between Perry and Art, who was lying prone at his feet. After a swift examination and a barked order to a waiter to bring an ice bag, she straightened and faced the assembled crowd, who ringed the scene in stunned silence, half of them staring at Art in sympathy, the other half staring at Perry with undisguised incredulity.

Perry stood in mortified immobility until Della's fingers closed around his arm in a vice-like grip, pulling him a few steps away from the victim of his temper.

"I don't think his nose is broken," Pamela announced, glancing at Perry, then swiftly away. "It appears he was hit closer to between the eyes than directly on the nose. He'll have a couple of impressive shiners, and a knot on his forehead, but that's it."

Art suddenly found his voice. "You hit me in the face!" He cried shrilly at Perry. "How could you hit me in the face?"

Perry shifted his gaze from Art to Della, his eyes clouded with apologetic misery. He had lunged at Art instinctively; enraged by his antics, protective of Della, of the current state of their relationship, of the privacy he thought she needed. "I'm sorry," he whispered inadequately, more to Della than to Art.

Her face was a tense mask of anger and embarrassment. "Go help your friend to his feet, Chief, and apologize to him." Her voice matched her expression.

Perry stepped back toward Art, and with Harvey's help, their handsome, blonde friend was brought slowly to his feet. A waiter appeared with the ordered ice bag, which Pamela applied to the shiny bump forming on Art's forehead. Art winced, the pain finally jumping over the barrier of alcohol. He jerked his arm from Perry's assisting hands. "Get away from me. I don't need your help."

Perry stood awkwardly by the bar as Harvey walked the injured man through the crowd of solicitous friends who murmured consoling words as they followed him en masse to the nearest table, where Harvey carefully lowered Art into a chair. No one looked back at Perry, their entire concern centered on Art, the imp who had admittedly misbehaved, but who didn't deserve to be rounded on and laid out flat. He was aware of Della at his side once again as she leaned across the bar to the curiously startled bartender.

"Double scotch, neat," she told him. When it was placed in front of her, she picked it up, and tossed it back with one gulp. She placed the glass back on the bar and nodded her head. The bartender poured another with a look of admiration on his face. The second drink was dispatched in the same manner as the first. When she would have ordered a third, Perry's hand closed over her wrist and she turned to regard him with that mask of angry embarrassment.

"I feel more confident coming between you and alcohol," he said, and pulled her away from the bar.

"At this particular moment, you shouldn't feel confident coming between me and anything," she said in a rigid, quiet voice. The look of abject misery on his face did nothing to lessen her humiliation, the thing she suspected he had thought to avoid with his display of misguided gallantry. "What made you think that was in any way called for?"

"I didn't think. I just acted."

She crossed her arms over the bodice of her dress and tapped her foot as an outlet of her anger, grateful that no one was paying them any attention so she could let him know immediately what she thought of his actions. "I can't believe you would hit your friend over something that stupid."

He crossed him arms over his chest, an almost belligerent parroting of her stance. "What would you have liked me to do? Should I have stood by and let him maul you again, or should I have mauled you?"

"You could have kissed me – "

"Really?" He interrupted. "You would have been all right with that? Just last week you weren't all right with public displays of affection. There are cameras here. We're darned lucky everyone was so shocked by what happened they couldn't think to take a picture."

Her eyes shifted ever so slightly. "They're your friends. That's different." Even she recognized the hypocrisy of her words.

He was becoming angry now. "How is it different? A picture is a picture. One taken by Anita or Frank or someone's girlfriend could just as easily wind up in the paper the same as if a professional photographer had snapped it."

"They're your friends," she repeated, trying to convince herself as much as him. "They wouldn't betray you like that."

"Oh they wouldn't would they?" He laughed bitterly. "I think Art's little prank pulls the rug out from under that supposition, Della."

"If you can't trust them, you can't call them your friends."

"Then I guess I can't call them my friends, if I apply your logic. But between Emory telling stories about Joanne and Art grabbing at you, I think my argument is stronger than yours. And just so as you know, I had to beat back Fletch and Everett from inflicting themselves on you as well."

"I don't like this side of you, this…jealous possessiveness. Why can't I talk to Fletcher and Everett if I want to? If this is how you're going to be, I have to ask you to…" her words trailed into silence as the full import of what she was about to say registered with her.

His eyes went from steely to sad and pleading in an instant. "Don't say it, Della. Please."

"Stop," she finished shakily.

"Della, please, no."

"Unless you have an objection, I'll remain your secretary, but I can't handle jealousy and distrust, Chief. I've been down that road, and I swore I'd never go down it again."

"Della, I don't distrust _**you**_. I distrust _**them**_, and I think I had good reason tonight. Please don't back away, not when we…not after Thanksgiving…please Della, I need you."

They stood inches apart, eyes locked, each swaying slightly toward one another, wanting to touch but unable to.

"Who asked me to this party?" She asked suddenly.

He blinked at the unexpected question. "I did."

"Why did you ask me?"

"Because I want to be with you," he answered quickly, "because there is no one I'd rather spend time with than you."

"Why do you think I accepted your invitation?"

He blinked again, not willing to pinpoint her reason for accepting, aware that too much was at stake in the answer.

"I accepted," she continued, "because I want to be with you and because there is no one I'd rather spend time with than you."

He chanced a small smile. "Maybe we should have clarified that before right now."

She didn't return his smile, even though he was completely accurate in saying it. "Chief, I arrived with you, and I have no intention of leaving with anyone but you. What transpires between arriving and leaving shouldn't affect the reasons why we're here together, why we go anywhere together. It's free will. Once we forget that, we're done for."

He reached out and ran his index finger from the high plane of her cheek, through soft curls to behind her ear. "This is precisely why I need you," he said softly. "Without you I'm barely human."

She finally rewarded him with a smile. "You are quite human, Chief, and therein lies the problem. Jealously and distrust are natural emotions, but you've got to put all that aside if you want this," she placed one hand on the pleats of his shirt, just above his heart, then placed her other hand over her own heart, "to be part of our lives."

Struck speechless by the position of her hands, he could do nothing but stare at her, into those golden green eyes again shining with promise.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

It was possibly one of the most difficult things he had ever done in his personal life, but Perry Mason stayed for the remainder of the party, individually apologizing to everyone in attendance, including Art, who with several more cocktails was more amenable to having Perry come within ten feet of him.

For her part, Della moved confidently between groups of his friends, pointedly not mentioning the recent fracas, allowing everyone to draw their own conclusions about Perry's actions, and her part in them, which they would have done anyway even if she had talked about it. She sincerely liked his friends, and her naturally buoyant conversational skills went a long way toward everyone's forgiveness of Perry.

Dinner was served, and the roast beef was excellent, the steamed red potatoes and green beans amandine perfectly prepared. The top flight caterer Della had managed to engage on short notice after the shady outfit hired by Pamela cancelled just a week prior because she had failed to submit a reserving down payment proved to be professional and efficient, discreetly ignoring the uncomfortable incident and keeping the wine flowing freely during dinner, their efforts to lighten the mood much-appreciated by all guests.

Della had engaged a young music student to play piano during dinner, and after Harvey's heartfelt thankful prayer, the student's talent pushed the level of cheer in the room back to the where it had been before the mistletoe incident. Even Pamela, who had been a bit put-out at Harvey for turning to Della to repair the party preparations, was able to relax and talk easily with everyone, deferring compliments to Della.

When Perry first got wind of Della's role in planning the party, he was inordinately proud of her efficiency, how she had handled her workload at the office, her never-ending appointments, and his need to be with her nearly every waking hour. He suspected she didn't tell him what she was doing because she didn't want him to chastise Harvey, which he did, briefly and jokingly, Della's lesson on maintaining her good graces gradually taking hold of his impulses.

Dinner had ended, and Perry found himself with Paul and Harvey by the enormous Christmas tree positioned near the portable dance floor that was currently being laid by a small orchestra hired for a bit of dancing. Waiters were circulating with trays of assorted liqueurs, and nearly everyone had forgotten about the regrettable mistletoe prank, even Art, who enjoyed being the center of attention more than anything in life.

The three men were silent as they each scanned the group of old friends, lost in their own thoughts of the evening, each surreptitiously gazing at Della across the ballroom as she charmed the orchestra leader while giving him animated instructions for the evening's dance activities. Harvey finally broke the silence.

"Who are you going to ask to be your best man, Perry, me or Paul?"

Paul Drake snorted Drambuie out his nose.

Perry laughed. "I haven't thought much about it, Harve, since I'm not planning to get married. That's your thing."

Paul grabbed a cocktail napkin from the tray of a passing waiter and wiped his nose. "Do you want two black eyes, too, Harve? One-Punch Perry here has already taken one fight tonight."

"I was merely making an observation. You would never have done that for Laura." Harvey sipped his Ouzo, then swirled the coffee bean in the glass.

"Art would never have dared approach Laura," Paul pointed out. Neither man had much use for Laura Cavanaugh.

"That's what I said. Only I said it sideways."

Perry smiled fleetingly. "I'm not taking any bait, gentlemen. I promised Della to be on my best behavior the remainder of the night so her efforts with the party won't go for naught."

"How resolved will you be when she's dancing with every man here but you?" Paul raised his eyebrows in question. "I plan on two dances with her. Multiply at least two dances each with Emory, Fletch, and Everett and at least _**three**_ with Art, and you, my friend, will be the evening's biggest wallflower."

Perry's smile was sly and self-satisfied. "But _**I'm**_ taking her home," he stated simply. He was learning.

* * *

><p>"My feet hurt," Della complained with a sigh as she snuggled next to Perry. "My feet have never hurt in these shoes."<p>

"What are you talking about? They're new, aren't they – to go with the dress?"

Della flushed slightly in the darkness of the car. "I've worn them before several times," she replied, trying to cover her little slip. "Just not when I've been out with you."

He opened his mouth to question her about old shoes perfectly matching a new dress, but decided against it. She apparently didn't want to tell him something about the shoes, and quite possibly he didn't want to know where she had worn them before.

"Maybe you never danced as much as you did in them tonight."

She squeezed his arm. "I had a marvelous time, Chief, after all the drama subsided. Thank you for taking me."

He kissed her forehead quickly. "The pleasure was all mine, Della." He had danced with her only once, but it was a long two-song waltz, the last dance of the evening, and as he held her close, as her head rested against his chest, he was content.

"Did you make nice with everyone?" She yawned loudly, a two-note vocalization that made him smile every time he heard it.

"I did. I kept sending waiters to deliver booze to Art, and even he finally forgave me."

"He's going to look frightful for several days."

Perry laughed. "He'll be mortified for about six seconds, then all the attention and sympathy will kick in, and he'll lie about what happened. He'll have dates lined up for months."

She yawned again, and laid her head on his shoulder. "Here I just told Valerie that nothing untoward had happened at last year's party, and then you pull a stunt like that." She lolled her head from side to side. "I hope next year the party is staid and boring."

"Be careful what you wish for," a warm glow of pleasure spreading through him that she was talking about next year's party. "With you at the helm, no party could ever be boring."

"I'm retiring from party planning. Pamela can do it all by herself next year. I gave her copious notes."

He took his right hand off the wheel and circled her shoulders, pulling her closer to his side. She readjusted her head on his shoulder as his fingers made little circles on the lame' stole, the gentle pressure against her arm bringing eliciting a shiver.

"Cold?"

She signed and brought her right hand up to dig beneath his topcoat, seeking the warmth of his body, the reassuring beat of his heart. "No. I'm fine."

"You don't know what it means to me that we made it through tonight," he said softly, "still able to do this." He hugged her tighter.

"It was touch and go," she admitted, tiredness making her words slow and quiet. "And we have a long way to…we have to trust…we have to talk…" she yawned again and closed her eyes.

He took his eyes from the road to gaze down at her, the woman he knew he would spend the rest of his life loving. "We will, baby," he whispered. "We will."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The Monday following Harvey's party, Perry sent flowers and a pair of oversized sunglasses to Art Emmelander's office. Art called immediately upon receiving the flowers, laughing so hard he could barely speak. Of sober minds and having had a day to mull over their mutual lapses in genteel behavior, they hung up solid friends once again after a ten-minute conversation consisting primarily of sentences cut short by guffaws.

The Christmas season was spreading good will toward men and no new clients involved in anything more exciting than trespassing crossed the threshold. Della was able to keep Perry focused enough to clean out the correspondence file, although it proved to be a mighty battle. He had been idle too long, and she sensed he longed for a good court battle. She caught him staring out the sliding doors at pigeons bobbing along the terrace wall and repeatedly tossing his hat at Blackstone between appointments and dictation. Before this particular lull they had moved non-stop through three murder trials, and while she liked the excitement, she found that a bit of downtime helped her reestablish order to the office. Perry, however, was out of sorts with the inactivity, his agile mind unoccupied by a good mystery.

It was Wednesday when she discovered the square envelope from Utah addressed to her in the afternoon mail. She eagerly slit the flap with the carved pink Bakelite letter opener Perry had given her as a gag, and pulled the folded letter from within. Reading as she walked, she entered Perry's private office where up until five minutes ago she had been perched in her steno chair at the end of his desk, stuffing Christmas cards into envelopes as he signed them.

"Your sister-in-law has invited you to spend Christmas in Utah."

Perry looked up from the pile of Christmas cards he had resumed signing the instant Della opened the door, and blinked at his secretary. Then he smiled, put down the fancy fountain pen Della insisted he use, sat back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head. "I don't believe that is entirely correct. She invited _**both**_ of us to spend Christmas in Utah."

Della frowned slightly, tapping the letter from Valerie Mason. "You knew about this?"

"I talked to Bart," he admitted.

"You're talking to your brother? Freely and willingly?" She gave him a pleased smile.

He shrugged. "Brad's birthday is coming up and I called to warn Bart that I was sending a baseball mitt."

Della's smile widened. "You did not."

"I most certainly did. That's what the kid wants and I knew Bart wouldn't buy it for him." He indicated the pile of cards in front of him. "Do I really have to sign all of these cards myself? My name is already printed on them."

"You do have to sign every one of them personally and don't change the subject. You just made me very happy, Mr. Mason."

Perry picked up the fountain pen, dashed off an impressive signature, blotted it, and set the card aside for Della to fold and stuff in an envelope. "I'm glad, Miss Street. Happy secretary, happy lawyer. So, how about it?"

"How about what?"

"Spending Christmas with Bart and Val."

"Chief, I won't be here," she reminded him. "I'm going home for Christmas."

"I was hoping that Val's offer might change your mind."

She placed her elbow on his desk and rested her chin in her hand. "No, I have to go home."

"That was a very resigned statement, Miss Street. I suspect you aren't looking forward to going back."

"I haven't seen them in over three years. They won't ever come out here, so I have to go to them."

Perry slid his arm across the desk and pulled her hand out from under her chin. "Della, listen to yourself," he chided. "You keep repeating that you have to go home. Do you miss them? Are you homesick?"

She stared at their hands, fingers laced, hers dwarfed by his. "No, I'm not homesick, and I'm ashamed to say that I don't miss them. And they very likely haven't missed me at all these three years. I just think I need to go home."

"The last hurrah?"

She smiled wanly. "Something like that."

"I can't change your mind? We could take Mae with us as a chaperone."

She shifted suddenly moist eyes to his. "That _**almost**_ changed my mind, Chief. But no, I've got to do this."

"I wish you would tell me about your family, Della."

She gave a mirthless, bitter laugh, unlike anything he had ever heard from her. "There's not much to tell. I have a father, a half-brother and a grandmother. They are peas in a pod. I'm asparagus."

Perry burst out laughing. "I think I get the picture. What about your mother's side of the family? Is there only Mae?"

"I have a mother. Somewhere." She shifted in her chair. "You picked the wrong subject to delay signing those cards, Chief. That's all there is."

Perry released her hand and once again picked up the fountain pen. "For all your talk about trust and honesty, my dear, you are one closed off little lady."

He signed and blotted two cards before she spoke. "I don't know how to talk about my family," she admitted. "But then, neither does my boss."

Perry didn't look up. "I seem to recall that your boss inflicted his entire family on you. Hence the invitation to spend Christmas with them."

She sat in unmoving silence as he continued to sign cards and stack them in front of her.

"You're falling behind," he prodded her. "I'll be done with my chore and you'll be left sitting here finishing yours while I'm at _Luigi's_ eating bread."

"I had a younger half-brother," she said quietly. "He died when he was twelve."

Perry stopped signing mid-signature. "Della, I'm so sorry."

She gave him a slightly tremulous smile. "I was blessed every day he breathed." She took a card from the pile, creased it, and slipped it into an envelope.

Perry watched her efficiently fill one envelope after another, knowing that she didn't want him to say anything. He signed the last card and handed it to her silently. She raised huge, glistening eyes to his. "Did you say something about _Luigi's_?


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The second Saturday of December Perry and Della attended a function hosted by the Los Angeles Criminal Law Association together for the second year. Della wore a cocktail dress in sheer black organdy with a fitted bodice and a dramatic wide halter strap embellished with rhinestones. The skirt was full and floating, and the halter design exposed her delicate shoulder blades, to Perry's delight. He found it difficult to keep his hands from blatantly exploring her back as they danced, the enticing softness of her skin combined with the heavenly perfume she wore almost too much for him to resist. Della was pleased that the women with preternaturally pert noses who had commented so cattily about her thrice-recycled skirt the previous year were positively apoplectic with envy about her dress this year. She merely smiled and accepted their compliments, thinking about the dress she planned to wear to the Bar Association gala in two weeks, at which these same women would be in attendance. Sometimes it felt good to be petty.

The second business week of December proved to be a bit more hectic, as arraignment hearings, pre-trial motions, and preliminary hearings were scheduled tightly so as to lighten the docket during the week of Christmas. Perry had accepted three minor cases that coincidentally came up for pre-trial motions on consecutive days that week, so activity around the office picked up. Della didn't attend motion hearings or arraignments except in special circumstances, so she had time to schedule three briefs to be dictated, collect precedent citings, and mark journals as per Perry's direction, while he was in court. She also had time to call the airlines several times a day to check her standby status on all flights east for Saturday the twenty-second.

She was beginning to become uneasy about her vacation plans. She had thought booking her flight three weeks in advance was in plenty of time, but to her chagrin discovered that eastbound flights were booked solid from the twentieth to the twenty-fourth. The Bar Association gala was the twenty-first, so she couldn't leave before then. When she did manage to find a flight on the twenty-second or twenty-third, there was no availability of a connecting flight to her destination. Out of desperation, she booked a flight on the eighteenth and put herself on every standby list at every airline servicing Los Angeles and points east on the twenty-second. Service agents could identify her voice from repeated phone calls, and while they sympathized with her, they were frank in telling her it was unlikely there would be enough cancellations for her number to come up. She hadn't told Perry of her travel itinerary issues, because after surviving those embarrassing photos in the newspaper and Perry's one-punch performance at Harvey's party, they were once again happily exploring their affections for one another. Della had even talked a bit more about her family. Sparingly, but she was talking.

The third Saturday in December was the Law Review dinner. Della had accepted an invitation for Perry to write an article which had been received so well in the legal community that the Review vetting committee had invited him to attend their annual bash in hopes he would agree to join their staff on an adjunct basis. Perry was flattered and mildly interested; Della was immensely proud and of the opinion he should do it. The dinner would be the deciding factor whether or not he added 'consulting legal expert' to his list of accomplishments.

The dress Della chose for the dinner was one she was buying for herself. Fashioned from iridescent garnet taffeta, it featured an elongated, finely pleated bodice with a black velvet false halter bust line, cut high on the shoulders for a fabulously flattering fit. Estelle had designed the dress to take advantage of her model's tiny waist and to display her graceful, slender arms. As a bonus for all of Della's hard work, Estelle added a bolero jacket of garnet taffeta, lined with black velvet. Della had found a frightfully expensive pair of black velvet evening pumps with shiny maroon heels in a sale bin for almost nothing, and Estelle loaned her the garnet drop earrings and cuff bracelet paired with the dress for her shows. Perry hadn't been able to speak for nearly ten minutes after she opened the door to her apartment, and throughout the night found opportunities to finger the painstakingly sewn pleats that circled her torso, whittling her waist to willowy nothingness.

On Monday the seventeenth of December, while Della continued to barrage the airlines with calls and ruined her manicure by nervously picking at the polish in distress, Perry was appointed by a judge to whom he was indebted to defend a woman arrested for murdering her husband and driving around with his body in the trunk of her car for five days. Neighbors noticed a horrible smell emanating from the car parked in the shared driveway between their houses and alerted police. The woman, Cynthia Colfax, claimed to have a head cold and to be unable to smell. She also claimed her husband had gone on a business trip. However, she was confused about the day he left, what city he was staying in, and seemed surprised when police were surprised she didn't think it odd he hadn't contacted her while on said business trip.

"I'll be more stingy with my markers from here on out," Perry lamented as he hastily scanned Cynthia Colfax's file with a deep frown. An initial interview with Mrs. Colfax was in twenty minutes.

"How could Judge Atherton do this to you?" Della asked in exasperation. "Does he know her or someone in her family? I don't like this one bit."

Perry shrugged into his topcoat and crossed the office to remove his hat from Blackstone's head. "Possibly. After appointing me public defender, he recused himself from the case. I believe it will be passed to Judge Simms."

Della rolled her eyes. "I can hardly wait for that trial. Judge Simms doesn't like you."

Perry laughed and planted his hat atop his head firmly. "I'm afraid not many judges do anymore, Della. I _**thought**_ Craig Atherton liked me. See you later. Be good."

Della stood in the middle of his private office and watched as the door shut behind him. After it clicked shut, she dove for the phone on his desk and dialed yet another airline.

* * *

><p>Perry was whistling and spinning his hat on his index finger when he returned from his interview with Cynthia Colfax.<p>

Della regarded him curiously from the side of his desk where she was arranging the 'trifecta of torture' – the three piles of correspondence she hoped he would attend to. The piles were relatively small, and the least urgent pile was primarily Christmas cards.

"Uh oh. I know that look," she said warily. "You liked her."

"On the contrary," he disagreed. "I took an immediate dislike to her. She's a liar and a fake. But she didn't kill her husband and shove him into the trunk of her car. Finally, something to sink my teeth into and have some fun with Della! You'll love this - "

"Chief," she interrupted "before we get into specifics about the case, I have to tell you something."

Perry's jovial smile faded a bit. "Anything wrong, Della? Did something come up while I was gone?" He flung his hat down on his desk.

She looked down at her hands, at fingernails now completely devoid of the polish the manicurist had applied only Saturday morning. "No, something has been brewing for some little time." She cleared her throat. "I can't get a flight on the twenty-second or twenty-third. I had to book a flight on the eighteenth."

"The eighteenth? That's _**tomorrow**_, Della. You can't fly out tomorrow. We just got this new case, Mr. Brent's party is Friday, and the Bar Association gala is Saturday…" He'd barely resigned himself to her leaving on the twenty-second; he couldn't possibly prepare himself for her departure tomorrow.

"I have to fly out tomorrow. If I don't, I might not be able to fly out at all. I'm so far down on the standby list there is almost no chance of my number coming up. My flight leaves at seven-thirty tomorrow morning."

"Well, we'll just have to charter a flight," he told her. "Call Byron or Eddie. If they can't fly you, I'm sure they can locate another pilot."

"No, I can't afford to charter a private plane to fly two thousand miles." She shook her head vigorously.

"I'll pay –"

"No! No, you won't pay. I can't let you pay to fly me home. I've already got a ticket and I fly out tomorrow morning."

"Della, we have work to do, not to mention the gala…it's me keeping you here. I should pay so you can fly out on the twenty-second as planned. You'll pay for the return flight if you feel you must."

Della literally wrung her hands. "I appreciate the offer, Chief, but I can't let you do it. It wouldn't be proper."

"Hang propriety! I need you here."

She stopped wringing her hands and placed them on her hips defiantly. "Don't do this," she said, her low voice even lower. "Don't be selfish and lay this guilt on me. I feel bad enough as it is."

He stood next to the desk, looking down at her, unable to fathom not sharing the next three days with her as planned – an extra three days tacked onto what already were anticipated to be the longest, loneliest ten days of his life. "Nothing I say will change your mind? Not even if I fly Mae home with you?"

She almost smiled. "Afraid not."

He put one arm around her waist and drew her to him. "Desperate times and desperate measures, Della. I had to play the Mae card, you know."

She dropped her forehead to his chest so she could smile without him seeing it. "One of these days it just might work for you."

He put his other arm around her and rubbed her back gently. "I'm taking you to the airport. No arguments. And I know you're smiling. How you toy with my emotions, Miss Street."

"Okay," she managed to say without laughing. She snaked her arms around him and snuggled against the solid comfort of his body.

"Are you all packed?"

She nodded. "Uh huh."

"Any plans for dinner?"

"Not really. Maybe I'll scramble some eggs and go to bed early."

"How about I drive you home and pick up Chinese on the way? I'll load your luggage in the car tonight so we don't have to struggle with it in the morning, and then I'll sing you a lullaby."

Now she did laugh. "The lullaby sold it, Chief."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Perry pulled the big car to the curb, lucking into a coveted parking space directly across from Della's apartment building. He allowed her to disembark the car by herself with the bag of Chinese take-out as he circled to the back of the car and opened the trunk. Della hurried across the street during a break in traffic and he reached in to pull out an enormous white box. Balancing the unwieldy package with one hand, he slammed the trunk and quickly followed Della across the street, dodging between cars that honked their horns at him with irritation.

"What on earth is that?" Della asked him, nodding toward the white box he again balanced precariously with one hand in order to open the glass security door for her after she had unlocked it while balancing the bag of food precariously with one hand.

"Cat fur to make a pair of kitten britches," he replied glibly.

She made a face at him. "Seriously, what's in the box?"

"Don't you know curiosity killed the cat?" He punched the elevator button and caught the box as it suddenly slid toward the floor.

She narrowed her eyes. "You wouldn't have a cat in the box, would you?"

He stepped aside to allow her to enter the elevator ahead of him. "A house is not a home until it has one cat," he declared.

"Now you're making me nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs."

He regarded her with a Cheshire cat grin and said nothing.

She gave a small exclamation of exasperation and tried to investigate the tremendously large box but Perry merely shuffled a few inches away from her. The elevator bumped to a stop and the doors clanked open. Della preceded Perry out and had to stifle a laugh when she heard the box smack against the elevator doors as they closed prematurely and he cursed under his breath. She managed to unlock the door to her apartment without putting down the large bag of food and stood aside so he could enter her small, cozy apartment. They both laughed at the tight squeeze the gigantic white box and the brown paper bag created, but both managed to make it inside without tragedy.

Della disappeared into the kitchen while Perry placed the box on one of the comfortable club chairs that faced the couch, removed his topcoat and suit coat, and loosened his tie. He laid his discarded clothing over the box, and headed for the kitchen.

"You don't have any decorations," he observed with a trace of disappointment as he rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt.

Della turned and handed him a tray to which she had transferred the carry-out oyster pails of fragrant Chinese food, a bottle of white wine, a couple of forks and spoons, and two glasses. She held two green Fiestaware dinner plates and a small tablecloth in her hands. "I haven't had time to decorate," she admitted. "Which is sad, because I don't have much to decorate with, just a little table top tree and a few ornaments." She turned him in an about face and gave a little push toward the swinging kitchen door, shrugging out of her short coat and tossing it over the back of a kitchen chair.

They spread the food out on the coffee table after Della laid down the cloth. She disappeared once more into the kitchen and reemerged with two short crystal candlesticks and festive red twisted taper candles. Perry lit the candles with his cigarette lighter as Della began opening the oyster pails and dishing up their dinner. They kicked off their shoes and settled on the floor, legs stretched out under the coffee table, their backs resting against the couch. Perry poured them each a glass of wine, and they silently clinked glasses beneath harmoniously raised eyebrows before taking a sip.

They made approving comments about the wine, the food and how pretty the candles looked in their crystal holders as they ate, seated companionably shoulder-to-shoulder. Della was three-quarters through her first helping before she mentioned the white box.

"I don't see any air holes in that box."

Perry sat back from serving himself more chicken Cantonese over steamed rice and slowly followed her eyes to where the white box was propped up in the club chair. "Now that you mention it, I can't see any either."

"And I haven't heard one peep coming from it."

"Cats don't peep."

"But they do breathe. I would hypothesize – notice I did not say 'assume' – that since there is an evident lack of air holes, that a live cat is not contained within that box."

"I would agree with that hypothesis. And it's probably a good thing, because there is hardly enough room in here to swing a cat."

She dug him in the ribs with her elbow. "Enough! Are you going to tell me what's in the box?"

"Maybe after dinner."

She promptly set her plate on the coffee table with a clatter. "I'm done."

He laughed.

She joined in his infectious laughter and picked up her plate, regarding his profile thoughtfully as she resumed eating. "We agreed not to give each other presents, Chief," she said reproachfully.

"What makes you think there is anything but files in that box for you to work on during your flight?"

"I bought a book to keep me occupied on the plane. No work for this girl." She wiped the last of the rice and garlic sauce from the plate with her finger and licked it.

Perry proffered his plate and she ran her finger along the edge, held it out to him. He leaned down slightly and captured her finger in his mouth, his tongue sensuously caressing as he licked off the savory sauce. Indescribable pleasure flowed through him, settling in his toes with an electric tingle. He set his plate down on the coffee table and took her hand with both of his and kissed the palm.

She shivered. Who would have thought the palm of the hand would be such a receptor of pleasure? She could hardly keep her hand still as his tongue traced the creases of her palm, then flicked at the sensitive connective tissue between her fingers. Her other hand crept up to rest at the back of his bent head, urging him to continue his ministrations.

A cross between a sigh and a moan escaped her and he looked up with a wicked grin. "I'll make a note of that," he promised, running his index finger down her life line, which elicited another involuntary shudder.

"I really am done eating," she said a bit breathlessly.

He abruptly dropped her hand and picked up his plate. "But I'm not."

A little frown wrinkled her brow. "Now who's playing with emotions, Mr. Mason?"

With a dramatic sigh he put the plate down once again and turned to face her. "All right, go take a look at what's in the box."

She was on her feet and next to the chair, tossing his discarded clothing onto the couch so fast he couldn't help but laugh. Ah, youth. She glanced back at him with a shy smile edged with anticipation as her hands reached for the lid of the box and pulled it away from the bottom.

Perry wasn't prepared for her response, even though he'd known he was taking a tremendous chance giving her such a gift. But after the trip to the desert, after Thanksgiving and the incredibly sensuous activity of removing her stockings, after the mistletoe debacle at Harvey's party and their ensuing dates and talks, he was hoping she would recognize and accept the thought behind it.

Della flung herself away from the chair, tears streaming unchecked down her face. He'd never seen anyone dissolve into tears so quickly or copiously. She looked at him, her face crumpled with hurt and outrage.

"How could you?" she demanded in a strangled whisper. She backed away further from the chair, turned and ran from the room.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Perry heaved himself to his feet and peered down the hallway where Della's indignation had taken her to the sanctuary that was her bedroom. She hadn't slammed the door. Door slamming wasn't her style. She pushed her points across with a chilly calmness that resounded more loudly than any door slam could. That she had lost her composure at the sight of his gift had rocked him. He could have dealt with chilliness and a bit of chastising, but this emotional reaction, this total loss of control and flight was something altogether new in his knowledge of Della Street.

He reached into the opened box and withdrew what lay within. It was beautiful. Maybe her reaction had been to its exquisiteness. He had never paid much attention to such articles before, but since meeting Della, learning about and admiring women's clothing and accessories was becoming a very pleasant pastime, and he was quite sure the deep, deep brown sheared beaver A-line swing coat was 'to die for', as the salesclerk had advised him. He draped it over his arm and took the route Della had used in escaping the living room.

The bedroom door was closed, but as was typical in vintage apartment buildings, the door was warped and he had no trouble opening it and boldly stepping into the most personal room in her apartment. Permeated with her scent and her presence he felt as if the room embraced him with longed-for arms. If he had imagined Della's bedroom – and boy, had he – it would have been this identical room. Soft in color and light, neat and precisely arranged, but with surprises lurking in unlikely places, it was a perfect reflection of the woman who inhabited it. The woman who was currently sitting on the bed and weeping in a silent agony over his latest and perhaps greatest transgression.

There was no rebuke of his entry into her bedroom. There was no reaction whatsoever aside from the continued leakage of tears from her misery-clouded eyes. He walked the few steps it took to reach the bed and sat down next to her, the unbelievably beautiful coat held loosely in his arms. Della glanced at the coat and jumped to her feet.

"Take that out of here," she said quietly.

"Not until you tell me what it is about this coat that makes you cry."

She began to tremble and wrapped her arms around herself. "We agreed not to give each other gifts. I don't have a gift for you."

He shook his head slowly. "Not buying it." He set the coat down next to him on the soft chenille bedspread and stood.

She moved to the opposite side of the bed, placing it's expanse between them and sat down with her back to him. He skirted the bed and sat down next to her again. She sprang to her feet again and returned to the other side of the bed. Perry sighed and followed her. When he sat down, she stood and retraced her steps. He got to his feet.

"Della, I'll play this game with you all night if I have to." He sat down next to her. "Don't you like the coat?"

"I love the coat!" she nearly wailed, and attempted to stand. He firmly pulled her back down beside him. "How could you?"

"Please explain from what sensibility that question comes and I'll gladly answer."

"It comes from the sensibility of what kind of a girl do you think I am? And what kind of a man are you to give a girl something like that –"

He laid his fingers over her lips, cutting off her words. "I think you're the most wonderful kind of girl." He wiped dampness from her cheeks with the back of his hand. "And I'm the kind of man who gives a girl a coat like this because she's going to a place that is buried under two feet of snow and I'm worried that she'll be cold."

Her shift in expression told him she hadn't expected such an answer. "W-w-what?"

"I could barely sleep thinking of you slogging through snow drifts wearing just that terribly fashionable but inadequate little coat you have," he said, his deep voice nearly quivering with tenderness. "So I bought you a coat more appropriate for where you're headed. What kind of a man did you think I was?"

"Then you don't expect me to –" she broke off, a deep flush overtaking her ethereal features, mortified at the assumption she had immediately jumped to.

Perry burst out laughing and gathered her into his arms, rocking her to and fro. "Oh Della, beautiful girl," he said between fits of mirth, "you are a constant delight to me."

"I don't see anything funny about this, Chief," she said, her voice muffled by his broad chest, against which he was pressing her. His hold on her was so tight she thought she heard a rib snap. "Except for the slogging through snow drifts part."

He dipped his head and sought her lips in a breathtaking kiss. "I'm not laughing because it's funny. I'm laughing because you make me happy. You are the most important person in my life, Della, and I want to take care of you. That's why I bought the coat. Can you handle that?"

She didn't answer and he loosened his arms around her a bit so he could tilt her chin up and look searchingly into her eyes. They were clear and dry and full of the promise he had hoped to see.

* * *

><p>The candles had burned down and snuffed themselves out an hour ago, but neither of them wanted to get up and turn on a light. They talked about it a few times, but the conversations always ended in a heated embrace that took them to the next mention of the lack of light in the room. The glow of street lights provided some light, enough light, for them to make out the other's features, and they were content.<p>

The coat had proved to be a perfect fit, as if sized specifically for Della's slender frame and particular height, and she practically glowed as Perry helped her into it. She did her best model's turn for him, pulling up the modified shawl collar under her ears and letting the 100 inch sweep swirl around her legs. He laughed as the sleeves swallowed her elegant hands, and folded them back in a becoming cuff himself. The sheared pelts were perfectly matched, soft and supple, the coat surprisingly lightweight. The lining was a deep rusty garnet satin, the most decadently luxurious fabric she had ever felt.

The coat also made a more than adequate blanket to snuggle under on the couch to watch candles burn to nubs and snuff themselves out. They finished the bottle of wine and Perry left the comfort of their furry nest only long enough to heat cognac in two bulbous snifters from which they sipped appreciatively.

Warm from the cognac, the coat, and Perry's affection, Della sighed. Her initial reaction to the coat, his gift of the coat, and been visceral, sickening, and the more she thought about it, the more his tender words took possession of her senses, the more ashamed she became of her lack of faith in him. She trusted him as she'd never trusted another man, but had still gone directly to the conclusion that he expected her to…that he expected…_**her**_. And she wasn't ready. Their personal relationship was still too tenuously defined, as the past couple of weeks had shown very plainly. As the past couple of hours had shown even more plainly. What she felt for him, and what he hinted at feeling for her had to be thoroughly explored within the realm of their working relationship, fitted in to their lives outside the office in a manner acceptable to both of them, and that was where they were stumbling.

She shifted in his arms, stretching her back, arching against him then relaxing once again, lost in her reverie about what he had said, why she was going home, where was her black evening bag…

"Do you have to go?"

He had asked that over and over, between their conversations about the lack of light in the room and breath-stealing kisses, and up to now she had merely smiled her reply. "I have a proper coat now, so yes, I have to go."

"Damn. Foiled by my own gift."

She snickered and stretched again. "It's my fault I have to fly out early. I didn't book my flight until three weeks ago."

He wasn't going to ask her why she hadn't booked sooner, why she had waited almost two weeks after first telling him of her plans to go home to procure a ticket. It would upset her and serve no practical purpose whatsoever. She was busy taking care of him every day, in the trenches with him when cases grew challenging, and those mysterious appointments took up what time he didn't selfishly claim of her private life outside the office.

"May I ask why you feel so strongly about going home right now? Why not wait until after the holidays when the weather is nicer and travel is less hectic?" He immediately felt her stiffen, agitation beginning to grow, and regretted the question.

"I just have to go," she replied, trying to convince herself as much as him. "My grandmother is eighty-four now and her health is failing, from what little I've been able to extract from my father. And Father and Carter only take time off from work around the holidays."

"But you'll miss Mr. Brent's annual cocktail party and the Bar Association gala."

And I'll never wear that evening gown I worked so hard for, she thought regretfully. The long hours she'd spent with Estelle, modeling, reorganizing her bookkeeping processes, sending out invitations and thank you notes, pushing herself toward exhaustion so that Perry would be proud to be seen with her and so women with redesigned noses wouldn't look down the truncated length at her; all of it negated by a sense of duty she couldn't explain satisfactorily to even herself.

"I'm not looking forward to attending either by myself," he continued when she remained quiet.

"Then just go through your little black book and call someone else," she told him with mild irritation, abruptly sitting up and facing him in the pale light. "Or ask Paul Drake to set you up with…what was her name…with Joanne again. I'm sure she'll be more than happy to be your date."

"Whoa Nellie!" he exclaimed. "I wasn't complaining. I was attempting to let you know that –"

"That because of my mistake you have to go to a couple of parties without your convenient companion?"

Perry looked at her in surprise. "Della, I said nothing of the sort. And as for being my companion, I recall a conversation during which you lectured me about free will."

She ran her hands through her hair, mussing it into a mass of tangled curls, blinked back weary tears. "I'm sorry. I'm tired and upset with myself. I should have planned better. Now I've disappointed you and my family."

Perry pulled her back down into the cozy warmth of the coat and kissed the charmingly tumbled curls at her forehead. "Della, I'll pout like a petulant four year old at each party because I'll be disappointed you're not with me. But I'm not disappointed _**in**_ you. I could never be disappointed in you."

She sniffed. "Great, apply even more pressure on me to be perfect."

He chuckled. "You are guilty of that more than I, my dear."

"Aunt Mae tells me the same thing."

"Mae is a perceptive and wise woman."

"I'll never be able to wear this coat around her."

"And why not?"

"Because she'll know you gave it to me. She's suspicious of your intentions toward me."

"As is her niece, I daresay."

She heard the smile in his voice. "Cautious would be a better word, Chief." She yawned.

"And that is my cue to leave," he announced.

* * *

><p>It took them some minutes to disentangle themselves from the comfort of their cozy cocoon. But after many slow, deep kisses and low, deep sighs, they finally emerged from beneath the coat. Perry slipped back into his suit and top coats, and followed Della back to her bedroom, where the luggage was precisely lined up in front of the closet door.<p>

"Just take the two suitcases and the garment bag, Chief. I'll need the train case and carry-all for last-minute packing."

"Is this all you're taking for ten days?" He eyed the two blue suitcases skeptically. For a weekend getaway Laura had always packed a small trunk of clothing and several suitcases. One for shoes, one for make-up, one for underwear and negligées, an empty suitcase for soiled garments…

"Thirteen days," she reminded him.

He groaned. "You don't know how frightening that is for me."

She patted his cheek. "You'll be fine. I've been going over things with Gertie and Mary, and they have enough projects to keep themselves occupied until I return. Sally Brewster said she would be on call for dictation and general administrative things."

"I told you I'm closing the office." He hoisted the two suitcases under one arm and reached for the garment bag with the other.

"Don't you dare. Besides, you have a new client. You can't close the office."

"I'd almost forgotten about the forgetful Mrs. Colfax," he mused. "Maybe things won't be so dull without you after all."

"Sally could be a big help in the early stages of a case," she said in light reproach.

"Stop throwing secretaries at me. The one I have suits me just fine." He allowed her to precede him from the bedroom, and feasted hungry eyes on her backside as she led him to the front door.

"Let me get my shoes and coat so I can open doors for you."

"I'll manage by myself. Run along and do what women do before going to bed and I'll see you in the morning. Bright and early, Miss Street. I don't want to be rushed driving to the airport."

She placed her hand on his arm for balance, lifted herself onto her toes, and kissed his cheek. "In case I didn't say it before, Chief, thank you for the coat. And I'm sorry I was suspicious of your intentions."

He looked down at her with tender, amused eyes. "I thought you were merely cautious."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Perry rang the security buzzer at six o'clock the next morning, and grinned when she immediately buzzed him up. He didn't like it when she waited for him in the lobby, or heaven forbid on the curb, and had hoped to catch her in her apartment. He took the elevator to her floor, and walked down the hallway toward her apartment with an easy, carefree gait, nodding amiably at a couple of tenants he had encountered in the building during previous visits to Della's apartment. He wondered wickedly if they were disappointed to see him _**entering**_ the building at this hour of the morning.

The door to Della's apartment opened and she stepped out into the hallway with the train case and carry-all bag in her hands, dressed in a blue traveling suit of almost the same shade as her luggage. Beaded embellishment in varying shades of blue adorned the rounded collar and cuffed sleeves, which he could see because she was not wearing her coat.

"Why aren't you wearing your coat?"

"Goodness, such a grouch so early in the morning. I'm simply setting these bags in the hallway. I'm not ready to put on my coat yet."

He followed her into the apartment and closed the door. "I'm sorry, Della. I guess I thought you had changed your mind about the coat."

Della stopped walking abruptly. Perry bumped into her, and then stood back in surprise at the stricken look on her face as she turned to him. "I suppose I deserve that from you. I've been a bit scattershot in my behavior lately."

"Maybe a bit," he agreed carefully.

She grasped the lapels of his topcoat and stepped close to him. "I've always prided myself in being able to handle anything, but this…you…and what we're…you're the most important person in my life, too," she finished in a rush. "My job and being with you make me happy."

His eyes twinkled as he smiled down at her. "In that order? Your job, then me?"

"The two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Sometimes I'm afraid…" she shook her head.

"Della," he said gently, "this is uncharted territory for me too. You said it yourself: we have to trust in one another. I told you the pace we move at is entirely up to you. I won't do anything you're uncomfortable with."

"And yet you bought me a fur coat," she pointed out.

He grinned. "I did indeed. Consider it a bonus for a job well done."

She grimaced. "I can't say that. That sounds exactly like what it's going to look like."

"I suppose that makes sense to you, but for the life of me I can't decipher it. What are you going to say when people ask about the coat? Because rudeness is rampant in society you know."

She leaned into him, breathed in the masculine scent of him, lonely for him already. "I'm going to smile mysteriously and not say anything. It's nobody's business."

He kissed her nose. "That's my girl!"

She let her arms slide around him. "We should say goodbye here. There are photographers lurking at the airport, and in case you missed it, we just confirmed we are nobody's business."

His long arms drew her closer and when his lips found hers they were half-parted, soft and willing.

* * *

><p>They departed her apartment later than he would have liked, but kissing Della goodbye was a new experience and he wanted to commit to memory every sensation, every taste of her luscious mouth, every sigh and moan uttered.<p>

She was quiet on the drive to the airport, gloved hands folded in her lap, the supple sheared pelts of her coat fanned out around her on the seat, the collar turned up to frame her lovely fresh face. Perry had difficulty watching the road, his need of looking at her stronger than concern for safe driving. He didn't know how, but every day she grew more beautiful. He thought the phenomenon was partially that she was most decidedly a remarkably beautiful woman, but the fact that his love for her increased on a daily basis played into it significantly.

Perry insisted upon escorting her into the terminal and waiting with her until boarding time, ignoring her objections that he should continue on to the office and tend to business as he tipped a skycap to transport her luggage to the ticket counter. Once her suitcases and garment bag were checked and her arrival confirmed to the airline agent, he took her elbow and piloted her through the throng of people headed to their own holiday destinations. He bought cups of coffee at a news stand and directed her to two relatively secluded seats at the edge of the departure gate waiting area.

She sat nervously forward on the chair, back stiff and straight, holding the paper cup of coffee in both gloved hands, eyes darting nervously around the crowded waiting area.

"Della, relax. There are no photographers."

Della swiveled her head to face him. "I'm not looking for photographers," she denied.

He sipped his coffee and regarded her over the curled rim of the cup. "Are you afraid to fly, baby?"

She shook her head. "You've flown with me enough to know I'm not."

"Don't go, Della. If what's waiting for you at the other end of the line makes you this nervous, then just stay here. We'll attend the Bar Association gala Saturday and then head to Utah to spend Christmas with Bart and Valerie on Sunday."

With every fiber of her being she wanted to say yes, to grab his hand and run from the terminal, but stubbornness wouldn't allow it. "I have to go."

He felt anger bubbling up and tried to tamp it down, loathe to add to her anxiety, but wanting to get at why she insisted upon leaving. "Della, you are usually a very sensible woman. But lately…"

"Lately I've been a complete mess," she laughed self-consciously. "I can't explain it, Chief, why I've been so annoying for you to deal with, and why I have to leave you when all I want to do is stay. I just have to. When I figure it all out, you'll be the first to know."

The announcement of her flight boarding blasted over the speaker above them. She handed her untouched coffee to him and insinuated a gloved hand into his topcoat, unerringly locating the small notebook and silver retractable pen he habitually kept in the interior breast pocket of his suit coat. Turning her shoulder from him slightly, she quickly scribbled something in the notebook and closed it. Her lips trembled as she handed it to him. "In case of an emergency," she said unsteadily. She stood, and the coat hem swung around her calves with a woosh of decadent satin against the light wool fabric of her skirt.

Perry set the coffee cups on the floor and took possession of her hand. His eyes, intense pools of blue emotion, locked with hers.

"I know," she said softly.

* * *

><p>Perry watched her walk from the terminal waiting area, through the gate at the chain link fence, and across the tarmac to the steps of the plane. When she paused on the bottom step and turned back toward the terminal, he hurried forward to the metal fence and smiled at her. He wanted her last sight of him to be smiling. Maybe it would help her deal with whatever it was that awaited her. Her answering smile was dazzling.<p>

He remained standing at the fence long after the big plane taxied away and lifted into the air. Thirteen days without her. How was he going to manage thirteen days without her when thirteen minutes without her was too long?

When he finally backed away from the fence to leave, he remembered the notebook in his hand. He opened the cover and what he saw nearly buckled his knees.

She had written a local telephone number, a dash, and the name of her friend Sally Brewster.

On the next line she had written a long distance telephone number, a dash, and the words 'your girl'.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

No one could be bothered to meet her at the airport.

Her brother and father were much too busy at work to take time to pick her up, her grandmother no longer drove, and she hadn't notified any of her old friends of her last-minute change in plans. Her father had already forbidden her to rent a car – proper ladies didn't rent cars – so she waited an extraordinary amount of time for a taxi, standing just inside the glass doors of the miniscule terminal surrounded by her ladylike blue luggage, suffering the stares of blatantly curious people who obviously had never seen a woman such as herself.

Or maybe it was the gorgeous coat they had never seen the likes of before. She felt spoiled and sophisticated in the coat, and exceptionally warm. As she watched pellets of frozen snow blow across icy pavement, the thought of Perry colored her cheeks a becoming pink. He had been absolutely correct in pointing out her short, lightweight coat would be no barrier against the weather here. If she hadn't dived immediately into being upset with him, she would have realized what a practical gift it actually was. Maybe it was the grand scale of the gift that had bothered her. But then, Perry liked the finer things in life and generally functioned on a grand scale. A serviceable wool coat would have been too pedestrian for him to select. And she had to admit the coat was neck and neck with Estelle's silk evening gown as the most beautiful article of clothing she'd ever worn.

The taxi driver deposited her and her luggage at the curb, refusing to navigate the slippery curved incline of the driveway. She paid him the exact fare and turned her back on him as he squealed his tires in perturbed protest driving away. Luckily two adolescent boys wandered by at that moment and for a dollar each they gladly carted her luggage up the drive and then escorted her to the door of the imposing square Victorian farm house with the wraparound porch.

Just as Della reached for the brass knocker, the door was flung open, revealing her grandmother, dressed in one of her ubiquitous grey wool dresses and heavy black shoes, her abundant silver hair pulled back in a crocheted snood embellished with seed pearls. She didn't look a bit different than the day Della left, aside from her reliance on a thick ebony wood cane, and was quite possibly wearing the same dress. But then, it was difficult to tell day-to-day if Katherine Street was wearing the same dress or just another of the similar fabric and design.

"Della Katherine," her grandmother all but barked in exasperation, "I expected you thirty minutes ago. Come inside this instant. What have you done to your beautiful hair?"

"Hello Grandmother," she replied smoothly, grabbing the small blue Samsonite suitcase and train case and easing past the elderly woman, pausing briefly to brush a kiss to a powdered cheek creped with wrinkles. "I had trouble getting a taxi. And obviously I had my hair cut." She set the train case on the hall table and the little suitcase next to it on the floor.

Katherine Street put a hand to her cheek tentatively. "You didn't smear, did you? Guests will be arriving momentarily and I don't have time to repair my make-up."

Della fought the urge to sigh. "No Grandmother, there is no smear." She glanced back out the door to the large suitcase and bulging garment bag still on the porch. "Is there someone here who can help take my luggage upstairs?"

Her grandmother stepped away from the door and shook her head. "I'm afraid you'll have to manage by yourself. Hurry, child, before all the heat escapes. What on earth are you wearing?"

"I'm wearing a coat over a traveling suit," she replied as she once again stepped out onto the porch, grabbed the large suitcase and garment bag, dragged both over the threshold and shut the door firmly. She should have paid those boys an extra dollar to take the luggage upstairs.

"How can a secretary afford a coat such as that?"

"I'm a very good secretary," she replied flippantly. Instantly regretting the impertinent remark, Della straightened and turned toward her grandmother to apologize and received a smack across her cheek with an open palm. The slap almost echoed like a gunshot in the big silent house, and hurt like a son-of-a-gun.

"Enough of that smart mouth, missy. I won't tolerate it in my house." Katherine Street's steely voice hissed and she stomped away with her heavy black cane up the hallway toward the kitchen at the back of the house.

Della collapsed against the dark wood paneled wall, her hand covering the cheek her grandmother had slapped. Had she really thought things would be any different after three years away from home?


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

There was a perfunctory knock on the door and she heard her father clear his throat. "Della Katherine, open the door."

Della sat up on the bed and rubbed her eyes. After Katherine Street's angry departure, she had made three trips to haul her luggage up the stairs to her old bedroom and spent some little time unpacking, hiding from not only her grandmother, but from the parade of guests who could be heard arriving for the open house at erratic intervals. After nesting the suitcases and pushing them under the bed, she had laid down to study the ceiling, asking herself why the hell she had flown two thousand miles only to be slapped in the face by her grandmother within five minutes of arriving, when she could be in Los Angeles, happily at work with Perry. The long day and tiring flight caught up with her and she'd fallen asleep, the question unanswered.

She hurried across the floor in stocking feet and opened the door. "Hello, Father," she greeted him.

There was no welcoming smile, no hug of greeting. She hadn't expected either, but it would have been nice. Her father stared at her with open disapproval, his stern face not softening one iota at the sight of his daughter. "What did you do to your hair?"

She raked fingers through curls mussed and flattened by her short nap. "I had it cut. I think it's becoming and chic." And Perry thought it was perfect – just the right amount of sass and class, he'd told her.

"Young ladies of breeding don't bob their hair," he told her stiffly. "Your grandmother is quite upset."

Bobbed hair? This wasn't the scandalous Roaring Twenties. "She can continue to be upset, because I'm glad to be rid of it." She couldn't believe that after a three year absence the length of her hair was all they had to talk about. What had they talked about before she left? She couldn't remember. Maybe the length of her hair _**was**_ all they had to talk about. "How have you been, Father?"

"If you had been here as you should have, you would know."

"Good grief, Father. I'm an adult. I moved away and cut my hair. I didn't have a child out of wedlock or murder someone. I'm fairly certain you can still hold your head up in society if your daughter has short hair."

"Well, what's done is done. Your grandmother requested that I let you know of her disappointment."

"Duly noted."

Her father's eyes narrowed. "She also told me your mouth is every bit as smart as it always was. I must insist that while you are under this roof, you behave in a ladylike manner and be respectful to your grandmother."

It's my brain that's smart, she mentally corrected her father. My mouth is merely the vehicle that delivers smart things I think about. Perry likes my – good grief, why was she defending herself with what Perry thought? "I'll do my best," she promised.

Her father's eyes narrowed further, suspicious of her reply. "You look so much like your mother," he said. She didn't know if she imagined it, but did his clipped, precise tone soften just a bit? "She had a smart mouth, too."

No, it hadn't. She sighed. "My smart mouth is actually considered an asset in my job, Father, and I'm accustomed to speaking my mind on a regular basis. I'll do my best to rein in any intelligence or wit that I may want to impart."

Her grandmother would have slapped her, but her father merely glared at her with an emotionless glint in his eye. What had her exceptionally young, capricious mother seen in this closed-off, stiffly formal man? From what little she knew of her mother – Mae wouldn't even talk about her – she had been intelligent, quick-witted, and ambitious. Why would she have married Jameson Street, a widower thirteen years older with a ten year old son, a man so cold that frost virtually clung to his eyebrows? Della couldn't remember him ever smiling, not ever, not once her entire life. Perhaps that was precisely why within two years her mother had disappeared, abandoning her infant daughter, never to be heard from again.

Jameson Street abruptly turned on his heel and jerked the door open. "Your grandmother requests that you make yourself presentable and join her guests," he told her tersely. "She's not as spry as she once was and this neighborhood gathering is tiring for her. I expect to see you downstairs in no more than ten minutes, Della Katherine." He stepped back into the hallway and closed the door behind him with a firm bang.

Della unzipped the rumpled skirt of her blue traveling suit and let it fall to the floor, then kicked it toward the bed. She unbuttoned her blouse and let if puddle around her feet. She pulled her slip over her head, threw it in the same direction as the skirt, unclipped sheer nylon stockings from her garter belt and yanked them down her slender legs. She stood in the middle of her childhood bedroom in panties and bra, shivering uncontrollably.

She'd known her arrival wouldn't be met with much affection or gladness, but she hadn't expected the extreme coldness of her grandmother and father. Was it too much to ask for a tiny bit of warmth from your family, for a smile or a welcoming hug? They had just disproven in spades the old adage that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

But then, they would have to actually _**have **_hearts in order for them to grow fonder, she mused while pulling on a pair of silk stockings with thin runners up the backs. Clear nail polish had halted the progress of the runs, and she smiled to herself as she smoothed them up her legs and clipped them to the garter belt. She couldn't bring herself to throw the stockings away, the memory of an evening spent in front of a fire, of intense blue eyes filled with desire, of lips touching hers with tenderness at first, then with increasing need, too fresh in her mind. All that had transpired between that night and this night faded into insignificance as she stepped into the flannel wool skirt that had so fascinated Perry, the soft rustle of the underskirt bringing a smile to her lips. She was beginning to find humor in his earnest but misguided attempts at moving their relationship from the office to the bedroom. She wasn't ready for that, wasn't ready to change their life so drastically before being satisfied that such a step wouldn't destroy what they already had, but that didn't mean the thought of it would stand in the way of their progress toward it. She smiled. Her logic sounded perfect to her. Perry would be perplexed.

She hooked the brown suede belt around her waist, slid on the matching pumps, and wound the double medallion necklace around her neck. A quick brush of her offensively short curls, a dash of lipstick and swipe of blush, and she felt ready to face the denizens of the neighborhood in which she was raised. And it had taken her a mere eight minutes to accomplish.

She let herself out of her room, closed the door behind her, and headed for the stairs.

He was waiting for her on the expansive landing, seated in one of the 'reading' chairs no one used for reading. He stood quickly as she gripped the bannister for support, lest her knees betray her. Blue eyes beneath heavy dark brows pierced hers as a lazy smile overtook his face.

"Hello Della," he greeted her, his voice low and caressing, holding his hand out to her, beckoning her to continue her descent. "Come here. I won't bite you."

She nearly fainted. Her feet refused to move and she had no voice. She simply stared at him.

With a faint chuckle, he climbed the stairs until he was standing two steps below her. Her feet finally obeyed and moved her back a few paces from the stairs. He took the last two stairs in a single leap, enfolded her in his arms and pressed hungry lips to hers. She struggled and he chuckled again as his lips trailed from her mouth to her ear.

"I said I wouldn't bite you," he whispered. "I didn't say I wouldn't kiss you."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

"Michael," she croaked, furious at herself for her lack of composure, squirming helplessly in his embrace as he continued to nuzzle her ear. "I didn't know you were here."

"I asked your father that I not be announced. I wanted to surprise you. You look beautiful, Del." Michael Domenico replied, raising his head for a few seconds, and then diving back to the side of her neck.

Michael. Michael Domenico. Childhood friend and former fiancé, the man to whom she had given everything her young heart held, the man who had taken her innocence, and the man whose distrust and jealousy and betrayal had been the main impetus for her flight to California. White hot anger at her grandmother, who surely must be behind Michael's presence at the open house gathering, surged through her body, which was currently being intimately groped by him.

"Michael, stop. Don't touch me like that!" She turned her head away from his searching lips, pushed harder at his strong arms, against his stocky body.

Michael released her abruptly and stepped back. "You've filled out, Del," he said approvingly. "You're still too tall and slender, but you're definitely a woman now."

She fluffed her hair with shaking hands, then smoothed them down her skirt in an attempt to soothe her anger and surprise. "I'm the same height and weight I was when I left." Actually, she had lost a bit of weight lately due to her hectic schedule.

His eyes gleamed as he raked them ravenously over her from head to toe. "You might be the same weight, but it's in all the right places now."

"Michael, what are you doing here?"

He smiled his lazy smile. "Grandmother Katherine invited me. She's always been on my side in regard to our problems. Aren't you glad to see me?"

Yes, she believed her grandmother would be on his side. She stiff-armed him in the chest as he moved toward her again. "Where's Amy?"

He removed her hand from his chest and held it in his between them. "Amy moved to California, too. We broke up."

Della's face registered a curious surprise. "I didn't know that. How long ago?"

"About a year after you left." He pulled her unerringly toward her bedroom. "I feel like those old fogies downstairs are eavesdropping on us. We need some privacy to get reacquainted."

"We can get reacquainted downstairs. I've been ordered to make an appearance."

Michael continued to pull her toward her bedroom as she resisted, digging her heels into the deep pile of the hall runner. "The only person you need to see is me. Grandmother Katherine will understand if you don't join the party just yet."

She locked her knees as he tugged at her again, knowing that she was no match for his stockiness and low center of gravity, but she was going to give him a fight nevertheless. "Father expressly –"

"Del, _**I**_ sent your father up here to get you. C'mon back to your room so we can talk."

Because he would have dragged her protesting the entire way, she relented and followed him into her room. "The door stays open," she told him sharply when he would have closed it. "And your hands remain at your sides."

A hurt puppy look overtook the angles of his face. "Sweetheart," he began, then grinned.

"Don't 'sweetheart' me, Michael. It's been over three years, and if I recall correctly, we didn't part on such great terms."

He advanced on her only to have her take a step back. Now she saw the impatience barely contained beneath his earlier pleasure at seeing her again. He seemed to sense it in himself and readjusted. "I've missed you, Del," he said softly. "Nothing's been the same since you left."

"I should certainly hope not, Michael, because things were lousy when I left. Why did Amy move to California? Did you accuse _**her**_ of being unfaithful while all along you were sleeping with her best friend? Oh, I forgot, her best friend was _**me**_."

His grin returned, a disarming, charming smile that had once been her downfall. "Touché. I mean it, Del. I've missed you."

"Michael, you haven't missed me in the least. It's been three years and you never wrote one letter, never made one phone call."

"You were in California," he pointed out.

"I'm quite sure there is mail delivery between here and California, Michael. And there is this wonderful invention whereby you can actually talk to another person who is far, far away. You see, sound waves travel through a wire –"

"Would you have talked to me," he interrupted, "or read my letters if I had called or written?"

"There are also several modes of transportation that could have taken you to California," she continued, choosing not to answer his question. "I myself just experienced the most modern and convenient, and I would highly recommend it if you are considering a trip of any length."

He stepped toward her and she wasn't quick enough to escape his reaching hands. He gave a swift nod, interpreting her response in the negative. "That's what I thought. Can't we let bygones be bygones? You're home now and we can get to know each other again."

She squirmed from his grasp. "I'm only home for a visit, Michael. I'm going back to Los Angeles on New Year's day."

Michael gave her a confused look. "But Grandmother Katherine told me you were coming home for good. She needs your help with the house. Your father's business is doing quite well, and he and Carter entertain a lot."

"Well bully for my father and Carter," she said. "If it's such a burden on Grandmother, why don't they entertain in restaurants or hire caterers?" The handful of notes she had received from members of her family had contained little more than commands for her to return and assume her 'proper duty' of running the household, if she wasn't inclined to marry. 'Wasn't inclined to marry' being code for 'foolishly letting Michael Domenico get away'.

Michael's expression was almost comical in affronted shock. "That's simply not done," he told her.

She burst out laughing. "When did you become my father, Michael?"

"I could think of worse people to emulate," he replied with affronted indignation. "Your father is one of this town's finest citizens. His business employs a third of the county and with the expansion that number will increase."

"Expansion? What expansion?"

"You see, if you had been here, you would know that. Carter is overseeing a twenty-five thousand square foot expansion in capacity. New contracts have been signed, machinery has been ordered, and a graveyard shift has been added to prepare for when the new building is ready. The ribbon cutting ceremony is scheduled for April."

Della sat down on a dainty skirted chair covered in flowered chintz. "I had no idea," she said.

"That's because you weren't here," Michael repeated.

"Good grief, Michael, just because I wasn't here doesn't mean I ceased to exist. Someone could have told me. I've corresponded regularly with Miranda and Patsy and neither one mentioned an expansion of Father's business."

"Miranda and Patsy are not the best sources for current events," Michael said dryly. "If it doesn't involve clothes or gossip about movie stars, I'm afraid they haven't got a clue. By the way, Grandmother Katherine has arranged dinner with my family and Miranda's at the club Friday night."

Della raised her eyebrows. "Grandmother works fast. I only called her with my change of plans yesterday morning."

Michael knelt at her feet, placed his hand on her knees and squeezed. "There is a great new dance orchestra at the club. I can't wait to hold you in my arms again, Del."

"Michael, I'm afraid I won't be dancing with you."

"You'll be the most beautiful woman there and all the men will want to dance with you, but I have prior claim on you. I'll be the envy of every man there." His words were almost giddy. He moved his hand up the side of her thigh to let it rest at her waist.

She removed his hand and placed it firmly back at his side. "Michael, you have no claim on me, and I repeat, I won't be dancing with you."

"What are you talking about? Of course we'll dance. Everyone expects us to be together now that you're back."

Della sighed. Oh, this provincial, socially backward little town and these provincial, socially backward little people. "Michael, I'm most definitely _**not**_ back. I'm – I'm very happy in Los Angeles." She almost smiled remembering what she had done this morning, at the step she had taken with Perry. How she wished she could have seen his reaction to her note!

"Grandmother Katherine is of the mind you'll stay once you're reminded of your duty to the family. Unless you're intending to get married, she expects you to move back home."

Della literally sprang to her feet. "Duty to my family! That's rich. Do you know what she did within five minutes of my arrival? She slapped me, that's what."

Michael stood and regarded her with an amused, indulgent smile. "You know better than to sass Grandmother Katherine. She's slapped me a few times during my lifetime."

She was so incredulous of his response she couldn't say anything for a few seconds. "I'm an adult! You make it sound as if she had a perfect right to slap me like I was a misbehaving child – who shouldn't ever be slapped on the face anyway. What I said may have been flip, but it in no way warranted a slap to the face. If she truly wants me to remain here and run this house, she got off on the wrong foot with me."

"You mean you'd stay if she was nicer to you?"

"Of course not! I have a very responsible job I love and I'm good at, and a very exciting, full life in Los Angeles. I'm taking care of myself very well and I have no intention of coming back here to run this house. Let Carter get married so he and Father have a hostess for dinner parties if Grandmother no longer feels up to it."

He fingered the curls surrounding her face. She jerked away from him. He frowned deeply. "I've thought about you constantly for the past three years. Have you thought about me at all?"

"You don't want to know the answer to that, Michael." She had thought very little of him, as a person and in general, memories of their time together overshadowed by his ultimate betrayal and her grandmother's acquiescence to Michael's belief it had been her fault he had taken up with her best friend. A woman should be agreeable to a man, and if he strayed it was because she was no longer agreeable. In her case, Michael had claimed it was her constant teasing and flirting with other men that had driven him to Amy for comfort, that her demeanor had changed and she had become argumentative and shrewish. If having a conversation about baseball in a supper club with a childhood friend while your fiancé danced with your best friend was flirting and teasing, and if insisting that your fiancé be faithful was argumentative and shrewish, then she was guilty as charged

"You're different," he said abruptly.

She smiled at him. "Of course I am. I'm not the teenager who once adored you and hung on your every word. You taught me a lot, Michael, and because of what you did I found the courage to move away. It was the right thing for me."

There was a cough from the doorway. "Don't let Grandmother hear you talking like that, Della."

Della whipped her head around. "Carter! How long have you been standing there?"

Her half-brother stood stiffly on the threshold of her bedroom. Dark haired and dark-eyed, he definitely favored his mother more than the fair-haired, light-eyed Streets, just as she favored her mother, which ironically gave them more than a superficial resemblance to one another than to their shared father and grandmother. "Long enough to know that you really haven't changed, no matter what you say. Grandmother is furious you haven't made an appearance, even if you are up here with her favorite grandchild." He nodded toward Michael, who grinned cheekily.

"Then by all means, let's head downstairs. I'm sure the neighborhood gentility is anxious to catch a glimpse of my scandalous haircut, the likes of which has never been seen in this town." She pushed past her half-brother in the doorway.

"You're wearing that skirt to Grandmother's open house?" Carter called after her, his eyes tracking her progress to the staircase.

Della paused momentarily, a slight stumbling hitch in her gait as helpless laughter shook her. She had never and would never please these people, so why not laugh as the strikes against her continued to pile up? "I'll have you know this skirt is a designer original."

"That very well may be, but Grandmother won't be pleased."

"It pleases me," she told him, resting her hand on the bannister. And Perry _**loves**_ it…

"It pleases me, too," Michael offered.

Carter shot him a frown. "This is Grandmother's house. She is the one who should be pleased."

Della was actually touched by Michael's gallantry, but rolled her eyes nevertheless at Carter. "This is what I brought, and this is what I'm wearing. Deal with it, Carter."

She floated down the grand staircase, the silk underskirt rustling softly with each step, aware that both men remained at the top, each staring after her with very different expressions on their faces.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

For all the disapproval heaped upon her by her family, Della had a delightful time chatting with her Grandmother's open house guests, none of whom appeared outwardly shocked or offended by her appearance. As a matter of fact, the only disapproving glances she detected were directed at Michael as he tagged after her, familiarly placing his hands on her waist, on her hip, on her back, and having them slapped away. He finally took the hint, and with a quick kiss to her cheek and a promise to call, he left.

After the front door closed behind the last lingering guest, Della, her father, grandmother, and half-brother gathered all the dirty dishes and glasses from around the house and spent two hours putting away leftover food and washing and drying dishes. Della tried her best to hold conversations, to tell them about her exciting job and some of the more interesting things that had happened to her in the past three years, about Perry (she was very careful to refer to him as 'Mr. Mason'), about her apartment, and about her new friends, but the reaction from her family was either horrified silence or ambivalent silence, so she gave up.

She was transferring slices of ham from several enormous platters to smaller plates that would fit in the refrigerator when her father cleared his throat.

"Della Katherine," he began, and cleared his throat again, "we have not yet decided upon a gift for you. Your decision to visit caught us off-guard and your Grandmother doesn't think it would be proper to give you money as we have the past three years. Is there anything you would like?"

Actually, money would have been most welcome, since this trip had taken all but two hundred dollars from her savings account. Perry paid her considerably more than he should, but she chose to live alone without a roommate and rent took a huge slice of her salary. This unexpected concern about her gift overshadowed the condition of her finances. "I – I don't know, Father," she stammered. "Let me think about it and I'll let you know."

"Well don't think about it too long, missy," her grandmother cautioned sharply, "or we won't have anything at all for you."

* * *

><p>The next morning Della was 'up with the cows' as her grandmother was wont to say, still surrounded by the little bubble of happiness the short conversation about her Christmas gift had given her. And she had thought about it at length, lying awake in her old bed until nearly two a.m., which was only eleven o'clock California time. At eleven o'clock she and Perry would still be dancing most nights, sharing warmed cognac and smoking cigarettes (primarily Perry), unwilling to end their day together and go home to their separate apartments. Someday they would figure out how to work together and be together, and they wouldn't have to go to bed alone. That thought had kept her up an additional hour.<p>

The house was quiet and dark when she shuffled into the kitchen in her fuzzy slippers to put a pot of coffee on to brew, the short days of December delaying the sun's ascent and greying it out once it did rise. She didn't miss the bitingly cold temperatures, and she _**most definitely**_ did not miss the snow. She was a total California girl after three years, her blood a bit thinner, her tolerance of the cold lowered by the temperate climate she now inhabited.

Her grandmother, father and Carter were creatures of extreme habit, and she knew her grandmother would be up any minute to fix breakfast, and that her father and Carter would enter the kitchen at precisely seven forty-five. She opened the refrigerator door and stood contemplating the contents before deciding that she could make omelets out of the leftover ham and cheese from the party with fresh eggs, and adding mushrooms and spinach. Her grandmother's collection of homegrown spices yielded a jar of dried dill weed, which she crumbled and sprinkled liberally into the eggs as she whisked them vigorously to the point of frothiness. Working with two butter greased skillets, she poured the egg mixture into each, letting it set slightly before adding diced ham, sliced mushrooms, and baby spinach leaves. Just prior to when the omelets should be folded and turned, she added thin slices of Swiss cheese.

She was intently watching the omelets cook when her grandmother entered the kitchen.

"What on earth are you doing, child?"

Della started and nearly destroyed the omelet she was about to turn. "I'm making breakfast."

"What on earth is it?"

"Omelets. I used leftover ham and cheese, and some of the fresh mushrooms and spinach. Normally I would add onion, but I know you and father don't like onions."

Her grandmother leaned heavily on her cane and limped over to peer past Della's shoulder at the omelets bubbling in the pans. Her nose wrinkled in horror. "I can't possibly eat that."

"For Heaven's sake, why not? You like everything I put in them."

"But they're all mixed together."

"Surely you've had an omelet before, Grandmother."

"I assure you I have not. It looks unappetizing. I'll just have scrambled eggs and a slice of ham. And cheese. _**Cheddar**_."

Della sighed and cracked two eggs into the bowl in which she'd whisked eggs for the omelets. She transferred one omelet to the other pan, opened the oven, and placed the pan inside to stay warm. In the now empty pan she slapped down a slice of ham and let it cook for two minutes before pouring the new egg mixture into the pan and busied herself stirring them into a scramble. When the eggs were firm but fluffy, she scraped them onto a plate and let the slice of ham slide out of the pan and flop next to the eggs. She placed the plate in front of her grandmother, who eyed the food suspiciously, as her granddaughter crossed to the refrigerator and pulled out a plate of sliced cheese.

"What's in the eggs?"

"Nothing. It's just eggs."

"There is something green in the eggs."

"Oh, that must be a bit of dill I used for the omelets. It's good, try it."

Her grandmother pushed the plate away from her. "I will not. I want plain eggs. I guess I'll just have to make breakfast myself." She grabbed her cane and lifted herself stiffly to her feet with a groan.

Della yanked the plate off the table. "I'll eat them, Grandmother. Sit down and I'll make another plate for you." She moved to the sink and rinsed out the glass bowl used for whisking the eggs, and dried it. Even a bit of water would ruin eggs. Then she thoroughly scraped out egg remnants from the frying pan, cracked two more eggs, and beat them half to death with a fork, frustration with her grandmother mounting by the moment. She poured the decimated eggs into the freshly buttered frying pan and scrambled them to perfection. Any short order cook would have been proud of her efforts. She then transferred the previously cooked slice of ham to a clean plate, scraped the eggs from the frying pan, added two slices of sharp cheddar cheese, and set the plate in front of her grandmother.

"The ham is cold. And you cooked it with the dill eggs," her grandmother complained.

Della stared at her grandmother in disbelief. "You're kidding."

"Della Katherine, I do not 'kid'. This ham is cold and covered with dill. I want a new slice. And new eggs. These eggs will be cold before you get the fresh slice of ham heated."

Della was just serving up two newly scrambled eggs, a fresh slice of ham, and three slices of cheddar cheese because everyone knew two would most certainly not be enough, when her father and Carter joined them in the kitchen. Both were dressed in similar medium grey flannel suits, white shirts, and dark grey ties. They looked prosperous but dull, staid and boring. Perry wore dark suits and striped shirts with colorful ties, spiffy tie bars and jeweled cuff links. He always looked authoritative yet approachable, his success evident but understated. And he smelled divine. Carter smelled like talc. Her father smelled like...was that pine tar? She knew immediately her father and brother weren't going to eat the omelets, but she pulled the pan from the oven and plated them anyway.

Carter spoke first, after he had picked the omelet apart with his fork. "What on earth is it?"

Her little bubble of happiness burst with an explosive _pop_.

* * *

><p>Della grabbed a quick lunch with Miranda and Patsy after surprising them at the department store where they both worked, did a little shopping to help with their holiday commissions, and then stopped at several different stores to pick up a list of items her grandmother had written out very specifically for dinner preparations. After the fiasco that had been breakfast – she had tossed the omelets into the garbage after both her father and Carter refused to eat them and made them plain scrambled eggs, ham slices and three pieces of cheddar cheese, thank you very much – her grandmother had not only written explicit instructions, she had grilled her relentlessly on exactly what she would buy and where she would buy it. Perry could learn quite a bit from her grandmother's technique. She was sure one more minute of questioning and she would have run screaming from the house. Once she had passed the shopping list test, her grandmother lectured her on the evils of wasting food, and that she must always check with them first before preparing a meal. At least she didn't slap her again.<p>

Katherine Street was indulging in an afternoon nap when Della returned from her errands, and the house was eerily silent. She put perishable items in the refrigerator, but left other items on the counter for her grandmother to deal with. She was through being lectured today. She boiled water and made herself a cup of tea, choosing to curl up in one of the 'reading' chairs on the landing to relax because it was the warmest spot in the house. She eyed the telephone on the table longingly but couldn't bring herself to dial the office. Perry had made it an entire weekend once without calling. She could hold out at least three days.

Or maybe not.

She had known she would miss him, but she hadn't expected the ache and the emptiness in her heart and mind. She wanted to talk to him, to tell him how her rigid, cold family made her feel unworthy of what little affection they possessed, how they disapproved of everything she was. Because the one thing she was certain of in this world was that Perry truly liked her. He respected her, and wanted good things for her. And he worried about her - she smiled as she glanced at her coat, which she had carefully draped over the other 'reading' chair on the landing. She refused to hang the coat in the hall closet and kept it close to her at all times. Last night she had slept with it at the foot of her bed, fanned out around her great-grandmother Della's dowry chest. She felt safe and cared for when she looked at the coat. She reached out, ran her fingers through the soft fur and sighed.

"Vanity is the quicksand of reason*, Della Katherine," her grandmother admonished.

Della looked up in surprise, not having heard her grandmother advancing down the hallway. Usually the squishy squeak of her sensible rubber-soled leather shoes gave her away. Della leapt to her feet and hurried up the short flight of stairs. "Grandmother, why don't you change rooms with father? It can't be good for your hip to climb stairs. Let me help you."

Katherine Street jerked her arm from her granddaughter's helpful grasp. "If I wanted your help, I would ask. Shoo, get away from me. You'll make me fall."

Della backed down the stairs as her grandmother descended the stairs, by placing first one foot on a step, then the other, pausing, and repeating, all the while clinging to the railing for dear life. Della noticed that her cane never went up the stairs with her, and now she understood why. "Really, Grandmother, take my arm –"

"I said shoo! I've been doing this without your help for a long time. I don't need you getting in my way."

Della backed the rest of the way to the landing, and scrunched herself into the recently abandoned chair, watching her grandmother's painfully slow descent, knowing that when she was her grandmother's age, she would probably want to do things herself as well, but that she would be much more agreeable about her insistence on it.

Her grandmother paused on the landing, her pale, bony hands shaking from the effort of gripping the railing, and took a few deep breaths.

"You're going to need another nap once you make it all the way to the main floor," Della observed dryly.

"And you are going to get another slap if you don't mind your mouth."

"Good grief, I'm only trying to help you, Grandmother."

"You can help me best by staying out of my way."

"Whatever you say, Grandmother."

Katherine Street nodded toward the coat so artfully arranged on the chair next to Della. "Are you going to tell me how you came to have such an expensive coat?"

Della pursed her lips in thought, her eyes twinkling with mischief. "No, I don't think I will." Her grandmother's hand twitched, but she was much too far away and much too unsteady without her cane to close the gap between them and slap her.

"Pretty is as pretty does," Katherine inexplicably reminded her.

"I think I look absolutely gorgeous in the coat, so I agree with that."

"You have no shame over that coat?"

Della's eyes hardened. "Not one bit."

"Then you should be able to tell me how you got it."

"It's none of your business how I got the coat. I'm done talking about it." She stood and gathered the coat to her, skirted her grandmother to remain outside her wingspan, and planted one foot on the bottom step. "I put the groceries on the counter. I'm assuming you don't want my help to prepare anything."

"You'd most likely put garlic in the ambrosia, so no, I don't think I'll need your help."

"Everyone knows you put rosemary in ambrosia, not garlic," Della said saucily, and ran up the stairs.

_* George Sand_


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Della was in the kitchen drying dishes when Michael appeared in the doorway. Katherine Street, who must fancy herself a cupid of sorts lately, had invited him to dine with them, failing to tell her granddaughter until the doorbell had rung and there he was standing on the porch with a bottle of wine and a foolishly pleased grin.

"Are you avoiding me?" Michael asked. He sidled up beside her and nuzzled her neck.

She swatted at him. "Just taking a break from all the hilarity."

Michael snickered. "They are a quiet bunch, aren't they?"

"Comatose would be my definition. Carter used to at least argue with me, but now he all he does is adopt Father's stern look and shake his head."

He went in for another nuzzle. "It's because of the things you say. You're different. They don't know how to respond."

She placed her hand over his face and pushed him away. "They never really did. I was always the outsider." She remembered how she had described it to Perry. Peas and asparagus.

"You never tried to fit in, Del. You fought them constantly."

Della dried her hands on a clean dish towel and leaned her hip against the counter. "I tried to fit in," she disagreed softly. "But I realized early on that I didn't want to be like them. I was more like Aunt Mae."

"Mae did herself no favors by being contrary," Michael said with wry disdain. "There is a great lesson to be learned from what happened to Mae."

Della bristled. "You make it sound like she suffered some unrecoverable tragedy. She married and divorced. It happens all the time, unfortunately. She's doing quite well, by the way."

"Well, it doesn't happen around here unless there is a very good reason."

Della wasn't going to have this argument with Michael. She knew where he stood – hadn't he done the same thing to her that Garrett had done to Mae? But 'around here' that wasn't considered a very good reason to divorce your dashing, successful husband after waiting well into your thirties to marry for the first time.

Katherine Street liked to dine early, and it was barely six-thirty when Della put away the last clean dish. After sharing more stilted conversation with her family over coffee in the parlor, Della accepted Michael's invitation to break in on Miranda's date with Peter Stanton before it got too late – when was the last time she had considered seven o'clock in the evening to be late? – and the two couples actually had a relatively nice time. Miranda asked too many questions about Hollywood and made too many sly comments regarding her relationship with the devastatingly handsome Mr. Mason for Michael's liking and he grew more and more tight-lipped as the evening progressed. He listened with studied disinterest to Della's stories about the quirky cases her boss took on and the exciting, dangerous things they did to solve them. Whenever Miranda mentioned her boss she unconsciously fingered the fur coat and a smile touched her lips. Michael didn't like it, didn't like that his former fiancée was so different and so obviously enamored of her life in Los Angeles. She seemed years older than Miranda, when Miranda was actually two years older than Della. He had been hopeful for a reconciliation with Della, that she was indeed home to stay, but the way she talked about L.A., about her job, and particularly about her boss, swept away any hope. She had been the bright spot in his life, the prettiest and smartest woman in the county. He had test driven a lot of women since her departure three years ago, and not one was her equal. She was a challenge, and he had found out too late he should have accepted that challenge.

Michael drove her home shortly after ten o'clock so that Miranda and Peter could have a bit of alone time on their date. Della was quiet, and sat as far away from Michael as possible in his little two-seater car. She had laughed when seeing it for the first time. It was identical to Paul Drake's car. Lord, she even missed Paul.

"Tomorrow's Friday," Michael was saying. "Dad's closing the office at noon and I thought I could swing by and take you to lunch. There is a new Chinese restaurant in town that I've wanted to try."

Della shook her head. "No, Michael, thank you, but I'm going to visit Danny."

"Della…" Michael's square face showed concern as well as consternation.

"It's okay, Michael, I can handle it now. I have to do this."

It struck her that she had said those same words to Perry.

* * *

><p>Her younger half-brother's grave was at the far corner of the Street family plot, marked with a small, plain headstone. For once in her young life she had stood up to her grandmother and insisted that Danny wouldn't have wanted a large monument, that a twelve year old boy would be mortified by a four-foot cherub statue, and her stepmother had joined her fight. And so the unassuming granite marker read simply DANIEL JAMESON STREET.<p>

She laid a single white rose across the marker. Danny had always given her a white rose for her birthday.

Today he would have been eighteen years old.

This was why she had insisted on coming home. She hadn't said good-bye to Danny three years ago. She hadn't been able to. And she hadn't been able to tell anyone about it, much less admit it to herself.

She talked for a while, her low voice telling Danny about her life in California, about her challenging, exhilarating job; about Paul and how she'd found in him the older brother Carter was incapable of being; about Janet and Evelyn and Estelle and what wonderful friends they were. And then she told him about Perry, almost shyly.

Her feet were cold and wet from standing in the snow so long when she finally finished telling Danny everything she needed to. She kissed the tips of her gloved fingers and ran them along the headstone tenderly, backing away slowly, knowing that she might never be able to talk to him like this again. She turned away and retraced her steps in the snow.

"I knew you'd be here," a woman's quavering voice spoke quietly. "I knew you'd come back for his eighteenth birthday."

Della looked up into the sad, tearful eyes of her former step-mother and smiled a bit guiltily. Had it not been for poor planning and unusually heavy holiday traffic, she would have still been in Los Angeles, attending a Bar Association gala with Perry and not been able to visit Danny until Sunday. But she wouldn't tell June that, because whatever force it was that had intervened and brought her home early had known why it was she had repeatedly told Perry she had to go home. She knew it now.

Della held out her gloved hand and June grasped it with surprisingly strong, steady fingers. "I had to say a proper good-bye," she said a bit shakily.

June's teary eyes studied her former step-daughter. "You are a lovely young lady, Della, all grown up. You are the best of the Streets, and I'm glad you got away from… here."

Della squeezed June's thin fingers. "_**Danny **_was the best of us," she whispered. "I can only hope to be as good as he was." She swiftly kissed her step-mother's salty, damp cheek and hurried to where she had parked her grandmother's ancient Packard.

* * *

><p>She told no one of her visit to the cemetery, and not one of her little band of heartless relatives mentioned Danny's birthday. It was like he'd never existed, and to them, he probably hadn't. Out of sight, out of mind, like a baby playing peek-a-boo. The world disappeared when the baby covered his eyes, only to magically reappear when his eyes were uncovered, a constant delight to his developing awareness of life. Only her father, brother, and grandmother never pulled their hands away from their eyes in regard to Danny.<p>

And they certainly hadn't wasted thoughts on her or her life in California. None of them had asked questions, except about the damn coat, and couldn't be bothered to learn anything about her. She was what she always had been in their one-dimensional reality: granddaughter, daughter, sister. Rigidly defined roles that left no room for a fully formed person to emerge. A granddaughter did this, a daughter did that, and a sister should do something else. Danny had broken out of his defined role at a very early age, his insight into their heavily structured world innate, his zest for life irrepressible and indomitable. She had learned from him, followed his lead, and loved him unconditionally. And then he died, and there was no light in the world.

Michael had actually been a great comfort to her during that horrible time. He was also dealing with the pain his younger brother Tony, Danny's best friend, was feeling, and the three of them banded together in grief. It was during this sad time that Michael had proposed and she had accepted, having known Michael her entire life and being comfortable with him. But as she emerged from her grief and recaptured some of Danny's spirit, the limited life spreading out before her frightened her. She was expected to marry, expected to meekly accept whatever her husband decided, whatever he did, to bear copious fruit and present a happy, satisfied face to the world. But she couldn't do it, not mentally and not physically.

Michael's cheating had been a blessing, a suitable excuse for her to follow Mae to California. She had taken college business courses to keep busy and knew she wanted to work, but no one in this county would hire her. Jameson Street's daughter shouldn't have to work.

And while Michael's betrayal had hurt desperately, as had Amy's, it had freed her to escape. The first year in Los Angeles had been tough, and were it not for Aunt Mae, Janet, Evelyn and Estelle, what awaited her at home might have been the most desirable alternative as she fought off office wolves concerned more with conquests than capability.

And then she met Perry Mason.

And a world of possibilities opened.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

It had been four days since he'd put Della on the plane. Four days of quiet emptiness, of no one to share his thoughts with, of no one to smile at and anticipate a return smile from. Four days of battling a niggling feeling that for all her protests, he could have said something that would have kept her here, that she had been waiting for him to say something in particular, but he couldn't fathom what it might have been. He reached over and opened the little flat drawer in his desk reserved for her and smiled as he realized how much of Della was in the office even when she wasn't there. Two tubes of lipstick, three odd earrings, a small compact, a hair clip, a package of Juicy Fruit gum and her pink Bakelite letter opener. Poor substitutes for the woman herself, but it comforted him to see these feminine bits of her existence in his life.

Tonight was Mr. Brent's annual cocktail party for his building tenants, and while Perry didn't particularly want to go without Della, he knew he must, especially now that he had offered to escort Gertie, whose louse of a boyfriend had chosen four days before Christmas to break up with her and she couldn't return the expensive gift she'd bought him because it had been on sale, and she had been crying constantly between taking calls at the switchboard and greeting clients. His offer had resulted in an effusive hug and a cessation of the weeping, so it was a fair price to pay for making a loyal, long-term employee happy.

He had hoped Della would call, if only to tell him she had arrived safely or to check on how the Colfax case was going. It wasn't going anywhere anymore, because Mr. Colfax's secret mistress had come forward and confessed and the persistently dazed Mrs. Colfax had been released. He had been disappointed that the first promising case in a month was a fizzle before it'd begun, because he'd really needed something to occupy his mind. But she hadn't called, and it was killing him not to call her.

After insisting that he was closing the office the entire length of Della's absence, he had settled for closing at noon today, and for three days the following week, and he was completely alone in the office at the moment. Jackson had surprisingly been the first to leave, and Gertie had been the last, giddy with excitement for the cocktail party, aflutter with concerns about fitting into her best dress, promising to be ready at 6:30 so he could pick her up and bring her right back to the office building for the party.

He lit a cigarette and pushed the advance decision he had been attempting to read away from him. It was either stay in the office and be lonely, or go home and be lonely. No matter how the coin landed, the result was the same. The office held more evidence of her – trinkets in the drawer of his desk, a bottle of perfume in the washroom cabinet, a colorful silk scarf and a pair of shoes with sensible heels in the coat closet – that he could touch and be reminded of her. His apartment was starkly masculine and devoid of her presence, which he feared would shove him more deeply into his melancholy. So the office it was.

He glanced at his watch and slumped down in his chair. Two-forty. The Brent party didn't begin until seven. He could start the McNulty brief, plow through back issues of the Law Review, practice hat scaling, wrap Della's forgotten silk scarf around his neck and breathe in her clinging scent, or head down to that dark smoky bar on the corner and have a few pre-party cocktails. But if he did that, he might wind up in the condition Art had been in at Harvey's party and embarrass himself...

He sat up straight and reached for the phone. Or, he could call her and tell her what it was he should have told her before she left.

* * *

><p>Miranda had called nine times since 3 o'clock – the hour which the whole town knew would be after Katherine Street's afternoon nap – consulting with Della on what dress to wear, how to arrange her hair, would it be tacky to wear a silk dress and nylon stockings, and what if Peter showed up in his blue suit and not his dinner jacket? Della was at the end of her patience with her old friend, who obviously needed something more in her life if a boring dinner with the Streets was cause for such twittering.<p>

When the phone rang at ten minutes to six – the club couldn't accommodate a party of such size any earlier – Della had just emerged from her bedroom, Perry's sinfully beautiful coat covering Estelle's sublime sparkly blue and black cocktail creation, the very same design Valerie Mason had purchased. The dress would be a sensation as well as a scandal, and she hadn't wanted her family to see it until she took off her coat at the club. Katherine Street would surely stroke out and her father would march her right back up the stairs to change, and she would wind up wearing that atrocious black silk crepe dress with all the ruffles her grandmother had suggested she wear, since the clothes she had brought were so unsuitable. She hurried down the stairs and snatched the receiver to her ear.

"Miranda," she said, highly exasperated. "Keep your shirt on. We'll be there in ten minutes."

Perry's heart quickened at the sound of her voice, absent from his life for a mere four days. "Della, sorry to disappoint you, but it's me."

She didn't say anything right away, the hiss of the long distance connection a roaring ocean in his ears. "Chief." Her voice was quiet, happy, disbelieving. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine. I miss you." He heard a male voice call her name in the background. "I've been thinking a lot these past few days and just realized I forgot to tell you something before you left." The voice called to her again.

"I miss you, too. But Chief, I – we're just heading out to dinner. I don't have much time."

Stung a bit by her impatient tone of voice after the softness of her initial reaction to his call, Perry gave in to the sigh he'd been holding back since she'd boarded the plane. "Della, your note, the one with this number on it…I want you to know what it meant to me."

"Chief, I don't have time right now. Carter is yelling at me and people are waiting – "

"I should have kissed you," he interrupted quietly. "I should have kissed you in front of my friends under that damned mistletoe, Della."

"Chief – "

"I'm taking Gertie to Mr. Brent's party tonight. She wasn't going to go because her boyfriend met someone new and broke up with her yesterday. There's been nothing but waterworks here for two days. I'm hoping the party will cheer her up."

She nearly laughed. "Chief, really, I have to go. I'll call –"

"And I'm going to the gala alone," he interrupted again, on a mission to tell her what he should have told her before she'd left him, when he could have held her in his arms and gazed tenderly into her incredible eyes. "I'm going alone because there isn't anyone else to call. There hasn't been anyone but you for a long time. You really are my girl, Della."

"Oh, Chief." The nickname floated to him on a light breath of air over the static-filled connection. He heard the male voice call her name, closer now. "Carter, I'm on the phone! Stop yelling." She didn't even cover the mouthpiece, just hollered.

Perry chuckled. Lord, he missed her. And he felt sorry for her brother if he didn't stop yelling. "I'll call again, Della, when you have more time. Have fun at dinner."

"Wait! Don't hang up. I – Chief, I –"

"We'll talk later, Della, when you get back. May I call you Christmas Eve?"

"Yes, Chief, I…son of a biscuit if that man doesn't stop yelling at me…Carter! I'm on the phone!"

Perry chuckled again. "Good-bye, Della. I'll talk to you on Christmas Eve." He very gently laid the receiver in the cradle and sat back in his chair with a wistful smile.

* * *

><p>Della stared at the receiver in her hand while her brother continued to yell her name, suddenly shaking from head to toe, the sound of his voice still caressing her ear. She couldn't believe he had called, couldn't believe he'd said what he'd said. How could they communicate so well when working together, but when navigating whatever it was between them personally they were such miserable failures? Why couldn't he have said it when she'd told him to go through his little black book and find someone else to take to the gala, when she was in his arms and they could have done something about it?<p>

She wrapped one arm around herself, digging gloved fingers into the soft fur of the gorgeous coat. She had been so awful toward him about the coat, about the emotion that had spurred him to give it to her, until he'd finally been able to make her see it was care and concern, not lust and lasciviousness that was at the core of his gift. She thanked the Lord above he didn't simply say the heck with her, cut his losses, and advertise for a new secretary.

"Della! I've been calling you for five minutes." Carter appeared on the landing. "Hang up the phone now and get out to the car. Grandmother is furious at the delay you've caused."

Della dropped the receiver onto the cradle noisily. "I'm sorry for delaying everyone, Carter, but it was an important call." She couldn't contain the smile that played at her lips, her first genuine smile since leaving Los Angeles.

"You knew we were in the car," he told her irritably as she glided past him and down the stairs to the hallway, "You should have told whoever it was you'd call back." He hurried to catch up with her.

Della stopped and turned to face her brother. "It was my boss. He's very busy. I had to take the call."

"Isn't it highly unusual for a boss to call his secretary on her vacation?" Carter grasped her shoulders and forced her to make an about face, literally pushing her out the door.

"We have a highly unusual relationship," she replied breezily. She rested her gloved hand on the rail and started down the slippery steps but Carter reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her slightly off balance.

"What kind of relationship, little sister? The kind where he buys you fur coats and jewelry and pays your rent?"

Della gripped the rail tightly to regain her balance. "That's insulting, Carter. It's none of your business. Let go, you're hurting me."

Her brother's grip tightened painfully as he walked her down the steps. "Have you no sense, Della? A secretary chasing her boss! I thought that would be beneath even you."

Della's eyes snapped fire. "I told you it's none of your business, Carter. And thank you so much for all the brotherly love extended to me in that last statement."

He opened the back door of the big Buick and assisted her in. "I can't help it if you continue to be an embarrassment to this family." He made his way around to the driver's side, jerked open the door and settled himself behind the wheel.

Jameson Street turned toward his daughter from the passenger side of the front seat. "You owe your grandmother an apology for making her wait in the car, Della Katherine."

Della made a face. "I'm sorry. It was an important call."

Her grandmother adjusted a lap robe over her knees and gave a little tsking noise. "You should have refused to speak with whoever it was. We will be late because of you. And you know how I hate to be late." She patted the lap robe for emphasis as she spoke each word.

"I know that, Grandmother. I told you it was a very important call." She leaned back against the seat cushion. It _**had**_ been an important call. Possibly the most important call of her life. Until the next call.

"Della is involved with her boss," Carter offered from the front seat. He had maneuvered the car down the driveway and was now cruising through the streets of town at an accelerated rate of speed. "He bought that coat for her."

"Carter," Della said sharply, "I didn't say my boss gave me this coat. Furthermore, it's nobody's business but my own where I got this coat. And it's certainly nobody's business but my own if I'm involved with my boss," she took a breath and added quickly, "or not."

"Della Katherine," her father rebuked her sternly. "Did you learn nothing from that unfortunate situation with your Aunt Mae? I must insist that you -"

"You _**insist**_? Father, I'm an adult. I live two thousand miles away and I take care of myself very well, without any help from you. You have no right to _**insist**_ I do anything."

"Della Katherine," her grandmother spoke ominously. "Don't speak to your father like that."

"Will you people quit using my full name every time you address me? Your caustic words and sour looks make it very plain you don't approve of me or my life - you don't have to rub it in by invoking my middle name." She drew the coat across her body, a proxy for the comfort of Perry's arms. Oh, she wanted to be anywhere but here in this car with people who should love her but didn't, people who only cared how her behavior or manner of dress reflected on them in the narrow world they inhabited. She had moved away by herself with very little, least of all the blessing of her family. She had made friends for life, found a fabulous job she excelled at, and fallen in love. Her life was fulfilling and exciting and…_and she had fallen in love._

Fallen in love. With her boss. She almost stopped breathing.

No, she wasn't in love with her boss. She was in love with the man who just happened to be her boss, the man who appreciated her, supported her, encouraged her, and allowed her to be herself. Impatient with most things, he had shown her nothing but patience, in her job and personally, as she assimilated to his professional demands as well as to his private affections. Stony-faced, brusque, and commanding with clients, with her he was nothing but respectful, gentle, and humorous. He enjoyed her company and wanted to be with her, and Lord knew she enjoyed his company and wanted to be with him.

Suddenly she knew what her father could get her for Christmas.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Della fleetingly thought of jumping from the car and hurrying into the country club ahead of her family in an attempt to avoid the inevitable uproar over her dress, but ultimately decided that was cowardly and she was anything but a coward. She attempted to assist her grandmother from the Buick, suffering swats to her hands for her efforts, and gladly handed off the responsibility of making sure the elderly woman didn't fall and break her hip again to her father. The three of them entered the club through massive carved wooden double doors and made their way toward the dining room in stultified silence.

As her father relieved his mother of her serviceable grey boiled wool coat and she fussed over how he had begun removing it from the wrong arm, Della let her own extravagantly posh coat slip luxuriously down her bare arms and handed it to the girl working the coat check room.

There was an audible gasp from Katherine Street. The hair on the back of Della's neck stood up and she turned to her grandmother with snapping eyes. "It's a cocktail dress, Grandmother," she bit out before the irate woman could speak. "It's beautiful and eminently appropriate for the occasion and I'm fortunate to be able to own such a dress." She pushed past her grandmother, whose face had turned a frightening shade of purple, and headed for the bar.

She was standing at the bar gratefully sipping a very dry martini with extra olives and smoking a cigarette when Michael's stocky frame appeared in the doorway between the bar and the dining room. He sauntered over to her and ran his eyes up and down her elegantly clad slenderness. "I like it," he announced approvingly. "Very sparkly. I don't see why Grandmother Katherine is all worked up about it."

Della drained the glass and signaled the bartender for a refresher. "What is Miranda wearing? Or your sister, or your mother for that matter."

Michael shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't notice."

Della picked up the second martini from the bar with the hand holding her cigarette and tucked her other hand in the crook of Michael's arm. "That's exactly why Grandmother is all worked up. Come on, we may as well join the party before she sends someone to find you if you don't return from being sent to find me."

Michael held back. "You aren't going to drink that in front of your grandmother, are you? She won't be happy with me if I bring you back chugging gin and smoking a cigarette."

Della rolled her eyes. "Good grief, Michael, she's not your relative. What does it matter if she's unhappy with you? Besides, it's vodka."

"She could have been my relative."

Della regarded him wistfully. "I don't think so," she told him gently.

"You always were aggravatingly honest, Del." Michael leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "Seeing you again has made me realize what a huge mistake I made."

She squeezed his arm. "Michael, I'm not who I was three years ago. A lot has happened between then and now and my perspective on life has changed drastically. Seeing you again has made me realize that the huge mistake you made was the best thing that ever happened to me."

"That's a knife to my heart, Del. Can you ease up on the honesty a bit?"

She laid her head briefly on his shoulder. "We weren't meant to be, Michael. Our futures will be thousands of miles apart, with other people."

Michael contemplated her silently for several seconds. "Is he good to you?"

She nodded, her voice caught in her throat, her eyes misty.

"Go back to Los Angeles then, Della, and be happy. I would like it better if you stayed here, but if he's what you want…"

"Mike! Della! Grandmother Katherine says you need to stop being rude and join everyone in the dining room this instant."

Michael's younger brother Tony came up behind them and slapped Michael on the back of the head. Della flung her arms around him and hugged him until he blushed.

"Leggo, Del," he protested, looking around sheepishly to make sure no one was watching him get the stuffing hugged out of him. She may be an incredibly attractive woman, but she was his best friend's big sister, his former babysitter. He was eighteen, and being hugged like he was ten was highly embarrassing.

Della laughed. "It's good to see you, too, Tony."

Tony eyed her critically. "You aren't going to walk into the dining room with that cigarette, are you?"

Della shot Michael an annoyed glance as he choked back a snicker and stubbed out the cigarette in a metal ashtray on the bar. She tossed back the remainder of her martini and then took each Domenico man by his arm. "All right, gentlemen, into the dining room we go."

Katherine Street barely acknowledged her granddaughter's entrance into the private dining nook that had been reserved for their large number of guests. "There you are, Della. You'll be sitting next to Miranda and Michael will sit here next to me."

Della gritted her teeth and took the empty seat next to Miranda, who wore velvet from earlobes to toes. What happened to the silk cocktail dress she had chattered about nine times on the phone? Her hair was pulled back in a sedate ponytail with a rather large bow at the nape of her neck, and she wore virtually no make-up. Della felt she must look like a tart seated next to Miranda, her shoulders and arms bare, her form-fitting sparkly dress disguising nothing of her figure, her make-up flawlessly applied. Miranda shifted guilty eyes from Della's uncomfortably.

Katherine Street unfolded her napkin in her lap as a waiter set a steaming bowl of tomato soup in front of her. "By the way, Miranda, I must say you look lovely tonight, every inch the lady. I would have thought Della would be similarly attired after all the chattering you two did on the phone this afternoon."

Della felt Miranda's misery flowing freely from her as Katherine Street placed her in the middle of the discord between grandmother and granddaughter. Della was thankful the waiters were efficient and everyone had quickly been served their soup so they had something else to concentrate on besides her grandmother's public rebuke of her dress. She sat straighter in her chair and blew delicately on a spoonful of the fragrant soup, listening to the eerie silence at the table, and wondering if her grandmother's overbearing personality would continue to blanket the mood of the gathering. She had known these people – Miranda's parents and her brother Larry; Michael's parents and Tony, as well as their sister Penny – all her life, but she got the distinct impression that not one of them, aside from Michael, was remotely glad to see her. They still bowed to the will of Katherine Street, whose wealth had once been mighty, whose influence in years past had made or broken entire families, and whose approval was still inexplicably sought by those whose wealth now exceeded hers, but was recent and therefore not as genteel. It made her sad. It made her mad. It made her reckless and slightly mean.

"Miranda and I did plan to be similarly attired," Della said conversationally, carefully balancing her spoon on the ornate sterling silver rest. "I'm sad to see that your particular sensibility about what a lady wears was inflicted on the poor girl, Grandmother. I will not apologize for how I dress or for what I say and do because I shouldn't have to. I try to be a good person and to treat people as I would like to be treated. I'm not a terrible person because I have a mind and choose to use it, or because I have short hair and wear clothes that bare my arms or actually show that I have a body, or even because I accepted a fur coat from my boss. I've never fit into the little boxes you built around me, and here's a news flash for you: I never will." She snatched her napkin from her lap, threw it on the table and stood. "Michael, will you please drive me home. I don't think anyone really cares if I'm here or not."

Her father pushed back his chair with such force it tipped over with a loud crash. "Michael," he said with barely contained anger, "you will remain seated. My daughter will go nowhere until she has apologized to her grandmother and to Miranda."

Della shook her head vehemently. "No, I won't apologize for myself ever again to you people. I came back to show you how well I'm doing, how I'm taking care of myself and doing something I'm good at and how happy I am, and you couldn't care less. Here's another news flash for you: I'm not going to stay here and run Grandmother's house. I never intended to stay past New Year's Day because I have a wonderful life in Los Angeles, a life I love with people I love and who love me." She was breathing hard now, too angry to cry, shaking visibly. "You've always blamed my resistance to your expectations of me as the reason I've never fit in, but the real reason is your ingrown prejudices about how things should be and how people should act. Life isn't like that. It took moving to California for me to discover that life is full of surprises and challenges, and that I'm free to choose how I react to those surprises and challenges on my own and not be constantly told how to behave. I can't give that up. I won't give that up." She gave Michael a pleading glance and hastily headed for the dining room exit.

* * *

><p>Della was pacing back and forth beneath the tarp-covered pergola that protected the entrance to the country club placing mental bets with herself as to who would emerge through the double doors to drive her back to her grandmother's house. The best odds were on her father, followed by Michael. She would have gotten rich had she placed a bet on who actually appeared, shrugging into his grey topcoat.<p>

"Carter," she said in surprise.

"I'll bring the car up so you don't ruin your shoes," he told her stiffly, stepping down from the curb and heading across the snowy parking lot.

Her brother pulled the Buick next to her on the curb and leaned across the seat to open the door for her. She slid into the seat and slammed the door shut.

"So you drew the short straw?"

Carter stared straight ahead as he piloted the car from the crowded parking. "Father didn't feel he could abandon his duties as host, and Grandmother requested that Michael stay with her."

"Typical," she muttered, bitterly disappointed in Michael after his earlier support and kind words. But Michael had to live in this town, and his father's business was reliant on her father's business for survival. It had always been this way, her family and friends going one way while she went in the opposite direction.

"Della, you have never tried to understand the responsibilities –"

"Don't lecture me on responsibilities, Carter. Did you not listen to a word I said? I used to try to please all of you, but I never could and I was suffocating in an emotional vacuum. Now that I've gotten a taste of the real world, of personal responsibility and true friendship and…and…love," she flushed a bright pink, "I realize that there was never anything wrong with me and _you should have loved me_." She dashed tears from her rosy cheeks. "Everyone deserves to be loved, Carter. It's a wonderful feeling to know you're loved, but it's an even more wonderful feeling to love someone else."

"You defied us constantly, Della. You fought us on every little thing we expected of you."

Her tears flowed freely now and she didn't care. She wasn't crying because her family never loved her, but because none of them had ever or would ever experience what she had found in California with her friends and her job, and especially with the exhilarating possibilities of Perry's affections. She knew this because a little boy, pure of heart and bursting with joy, had shown her how to love, had taught her that she was worthy of love even if she couldn't be the prim, proper, and sedate granddaughter/daughter/sister she was expected to be.

She shook her head sadly. "Carter, I fear you will never understand, and because you will never understand, you will never know love or happiness. I always wondered why you never married, and now I finally know."

"I had a responsibility to Grandmother and Father to help with the business," he defended himself, his upper lip starched with affront. "You running away was a huge burden on Grandmother, and I've had to take up the slack."

"Oh Carter," she whispered. "You are such a sad human being. You were over thirty when I left, and I had never known you to have a date. Aren't you lonely? Don't you want someone to share your life with?"

"I have the expansion to think about. I don't have time for dating. The business is in a very tenuous position right now."

The sadness of it, the utter waste, made her sick to her stomach. "I want to go home," she announced.

Carter turned the car onto the street where their grandmother's house was located. "I'm taking you home."

She shook her head. "No, I want to go home to California. Not on New Year's Day, but as soon as possible. I had intended to ask Father to give me a check after all instead of an actual gift so I could charter a plane. I need to go home and be with people who care enough to get to know me and appreciate me…and someone who may actually love me." She smiled wanly. "This place is not my home anymore, if it ever was."

Carter skillfully navigated the Buick up the icy, inclined driveway and pulled the car to a stop in front of the porch stairs. He turned to look at his sister, and was struck by her loveliness. He tried to remember if he'd ever held any affection for her. As an infant she had been chubby and cheerful, beautiful and big-eyed, but he had been eleven and uninterested in babies, especially girl babies who drooled and pulled his hair with glee. As she grew she remained beautiful and big-eyed, but progressively less chubby and cheerful, until Danny was born when she was six, and then her cheerfulness had returned. By the time she left for California to live with her Aunt Mae, Danny's death and her own continued stubborn refusal to respect the wishes of their father and grandmother had robbed her of her cheerfulness once again. She accused him of not understanding, but obviously it was she who didn't understand the role she had been born into.

Three years in California had changed her in subtle ways. She was still stubborn and rebellious of her duties as Katherine Street's granddaughter and as Jameson Street's daughter, but it was a more confident stubbornness and rebellion of acquired knowledge and less the naïveté of a young woman who _**thought**_ there might be something different awaiting her in the world. Maybe she really had found what she had hoped awaited her – or possibly what she'd found had been one of those surprises she had mentioned – and it meant more to her than fulfilling her birthright.

"Can you be packed in ten minutes?"

She raised wide, startled eyes to his.

"I'll drive you to the airport and write a check for a private plane if you can get your luggage down here in no more than ten minutes. If that someone who may actually love you gave you that coat, you should probably spend Christmas with him and not us."


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 17

Perry untied his bowtie for the third time with a disgusted curse. It was a new tie, to go with his new pleated and onyx studded shirt, which in turn went with his new tuxedo, and the entire ensemble was supposed to go with Della to the Bar Association Christmas gala and whatever delectable gown she would be wearing.

How much he hadn't wanted to attend the Brent Building cocktail party the previous night couldn't compare with how much he didn't want to attend the gala tonight. Parties weren't any fun without Della and her wickedly pithy commentary and enviable social capabilities. Gertie had kept up a constant chatter with him last night that had been amusing and informative about the goings-on in the Brent Building, and he appreciated her company, but he missed Della's familiarity with him and the history they were building together, the secret looks and laughter they shared that sailed right over everyone else's heads, which made them laugh all the more.

The gala tonight was the most anticipated Bar Association function of the year, the one at which there were no boring speeches, no trite awards, and very little posturing. Prosecutors and got drunk with defenders, divorce specialists got drunk with contract negotiators, and judges got drunk with everyone. Spirits were high as well as free-flowing, and there was not a rubber banquet chicken in sight. Dinner consisted of prime ribs of beef and delicacies from the sea, vegetables slathered in Hollandaise sauce, baked potatoes topped with whipped butter and sprinkled with chives, and Caesar salads mixed tableside by wannabe chefs in pristine aprons and ridiculously tall hats.

Perry always shared a table with Harvey Sayers and whoever he was currently married or engaged to, Art Emmelander, and one of the McGreavey twins, as well as the dates they had been able to scrounge up. At a table next to theirs would be Jim and Anita Brandis, Frank and Jory Heartwell, Craig and Connie Atherton, and the other McGreavey twin, as well as the date he had been able to scrounge up. At another table in close proximity would be the partners of Laura Cavanaugh's former firm, unless the uncomfortable arrangement had been addressed with the seating committee.

The fifth try at perfecting his tie satisfied Perry, and he stepped away from the mirror. He yanked the new tuxedo jacket from the wardrobe valet and slipped into it. He had bought the tuxedo and paid a premium to have it tailored in time for the gala as a surprise for Della, because his old tuxedo had seemed drab, uninteresting, and ill-fitting next to the exquisitely designed dresses she had appeared in lately. His newly discovered appreciation of women's clothing told him they were new and expensive and made specifically for her, each more beautiful than the one before.

The new tuxedo made him feel worthy of being her escort. But he had thought of it too late, and now she wasn't here to decorate his arm and complete the picture he had envisioned. He wondered what delectable gown she had selected to wear tonight. It would have to be quite something else to top the red dress with the tiny pleats and velvet bust line. He almost sighed in remembrance.

He took a taxi to the hotel where the gala was being held because he suspected that he just might be drinking a lot tonight. He had decided to cut out of the banquet early and meet Paul Drake for a bit of club crawling and he didn't want to wake up tomorrow wondering where the heck his car was and how the heck he got home.

* * *

><p>Perry arrived a fashionable twelve minutes late and was chagrinned to discover that his friends and colleagues had all arrived before him. The last thing he had wanted was to make an entrance, calling attention to his solo status. Only Harvey knew Della wasn't attending because he'd had to tell him not to plan on Della to be at his wedding on New Year's Eve. He had sworn Harvey to secrecy and hadn't mentioned it to anyone else in a preemptive maneuver to fend off the inevitable suggestions of suitable women who would be available at such short notice to accompany him. It was his own fault. He should have been more forthright about his feelings for Della, especially with Emory and Art, who were the most enamored of her. Della had been right, as she usually was; that he needed to trust this group of knuckleheads, because if he didn't, their many years of friendship up to this point meant nothing.<p>

"Perry, Perry, Perry!" Art called, catching sight of him as he jockeyed his way between the tables toward the back of the ballroom where his particular group of compatriots had been seated. Art turned to his date, a woman named Marion who accompanied him on the occasional dinner date for the sake of amusement. "Did I tell you about this guy? He sucker-punched me then sent _**flowers**_. A class act all the way."

Perry had no trouble finding his seat, next to a chair reserved for 'Miss Della Street' with a hand-lettered place card. The empty chair and the place card brought on a dizzying wave of loneliness. How was he going to last another nine days without her? And why hadn't he thought to call the gala committee and have her place card and chair removed? Now the empty chair would be a constant reminder of her absence, a void nothing and no one could fill.

"Perry got a new tux," Everett McGreavey observed drolly.

"About damn time," Harvey declared as Pamela shot him a disapproving look. "His other one was an old man tux."

"I'll have you know that tux was the height of fashion when I bought it," Perry protested indignantly.

"And when was that? College graduation?" Art inquired with raised eyebrows.

Perry's grin was pure evil. "For Harvey's first wedding."

Harvey calmly lit a cigarette and blew twin streams of smoke through his nostrils. "Then it's only fitting that you should buy a new tux for my _**last**_ wedding," he drawled, laying his arm across the back of Pamela's chair.

"Good answer, dear," Pamela congratulated him, transferring her disapproving look to Perry.

Art abruptly sat straighter in his chair and scanned the crowd gathered around the bar at the far end of the ball room. "Where's Della? Did you send her to the bar for drinks? That's not very gallant, Perry."

Perry heaved a sigh and exchanged glances with Harvey. He may as well tell them, accept their pity, and get on with the evening. "Della's not," he began, then stopped as silence descended on the table, jaws went slack, astonishment registering in eyes that looked beyond him toward the entrance to the ballroom.

"Heaven above," Art breathed.

"Saints preserve," Everett said sotto voce.

"Holy shhhhhheeeet," Harvey hissed.

"Harvey!" Pamela chided. Then: "Oh my goodness."

Perry turned in his chair to look toward the main ballroom entrance and his heart nearly stopped.

Because Della was winding her way between tables and groups of mingling guests, nearly every eye in the crowded ballroom tracking her progress as she glided toward him with otherworldly grace, the iridescent pink half-skirt of her exquisite brown silk ball gown swirling gently behind her. Sparkling eyes caught and held his gaze, and she smiled for him. For only him.

He should have taken steps to meet her and escort her to the table, but he couldn't move for her loveliness, for the shock of her presence in the ballroom. When she was but a few feet from him she reached out her gloved hand and he finally accepted the fact that she was real and his legs propelled him forward. Her hand slipped into his, and he felt her tremble.

"Hi," she said softly. "I'm home."


	19. Chapter 19

_Here it is, the concluding chapter. Yay! I apologize for not concluding it before my original deadline of Dec. 24, and then not on the revised deadline of Jan. 6. Thank you to everyone who has faithfully followed this tome, and a special shout out to Michelle who held my hand during unexpected rough patches and made invaluable suggestions to aid in the editing process. ~ D_

Chapter 19

Perry didn't let go of her hand as he escorted her to the table, released it only long enough to seat her and himself, and took possession of it again beneath the table.

"I apologize for being late," Della said to everyone, all of whom were still staring at her in blatant admiration and/or jealousy. "I had a bit of trouble getting here."

"We're glad you're finally here," Harvey told her with a twinkle. "Perry is misbehaving. Would you please take control of him before someone punches him?"

"You look amazing!" Pamela exclaimed with heartfelt admiration. She blushed slightly at her outburst. "Really Della, your dress is the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen. Every woman here turned three shades of green with envy when you walked in."

There was a round of awed agreement and similar effusive compliments from both tables. Della couldn't do much more than thank everyone before Perry tugged on her hand, demanding her attention once again.

"You're here," he whispered dazedly. He couldn't take his eyes from her face, from the face he'd thought he'd memorized, but it was very different from the vision in his mind and he began the memorization process all over again. How could she be so much more beautiful than he'd remembered?

"I'm here," she confirmed with a bit of amusement. "I have something for you." She gently pulled her hand from his and turned slightly in her chair. She held up a pink rosebud boutonnière.

He shifted his shoulder toward her and inhaled deeply as she leaned toward him, her gloved hands making quick work of pinning the boutonniere to his lapel and then patting the slick fabric. "Nice," she said approvingly.

"I bought it for you," he blurted and grinned at her when she lifted dancing eyes to his. "I mean, I bought it so I wouldn't look like such a ragamuffin next to you. Pamela is right. That dress is like nothing I've ever seen."

Her hand once again slipped into his hand and squeezed it. "That's because a good friend designed it especially for me to wear tonight," she told him with a brilliant smile. "I'll tell you about it later."

"Della, Perry may be an impolite dolt, but my mother raised me right, and when I see a lady without a drink, I offer to get her one." Art was standing behind Marion's chair, his hand caressing her bare shoulder. "What is your pleasure? All the other ladies are drinking martinis."

"She'll have champagne," Perry answered for her, and she smiled again at him. "And I'll let you get this round as recompense for disparaging my mother."

"I didn't disparage your mother," Art deadpanned. "I specifically disparaged your mother's son."

* * *

><p>Infused with warmth from the champagne and her empty stomach filled with delicious food, Della settled back in her chair and sought Perry's hand beneath the table once again. He had refused to let go of her during the cocktail hour and she'd been forced to eat from the appetizer platter with her left hand. When the waiter placed her dinner plate in front of her she had disengaged her fingers from his to remove her gloves, long luxurious satin dyed to match her brown dress exactly, and attacked her food with unbridled enthusiasm. It was the first real food she'd eaten in thirty-six hours, since she'd missed dinner at the club the previous night, and there just hadn't been time to eat during refueling stops, or while Evelyn and Estelle worked their magic, and certainly not between disembarking the taxicab and checking her luggage with the hotel concierge. Oh shoot! The taxicab fare. She sat forward quickly and pulled her clutch across the tablecloth toward her.<p>

"Ready for dessert or would you prefer a liqueur?" Perry asked. He had barely taken his eyes from her since her arrival, virtually ignoring the conversations zinging around and between the tables, being polite but short with anyone who stopped by to speak with them, unwilling to share his time with her.

She nodded. "I'd like some sort of decadent liqueur please. By the way, you owe this person five dollars." She handed him a business card.

He glanced at it and his eyes widened at the name printed in a bold face type. "Why do I owe the brand new District Attorney five dollars?"

"For my taxi. I'm completely out of money and this very nice man came to my rescue with an irate cab driver. What do you mean the new District Attorney?" She leaned toward him and peered at the card. "Hamilton Burger! I was in such a hurry and so distracted by the bellboy handling my luggage I guess I didn't look very carefully at the man or his card."

"And why are you completely out of money?"

"Because it took every penny I had to get here," she admitted, her eyes huge with naked honesty.

Perry considered her reply for several seconds. "I think we need to talk, young lady." He stood and put his hand on the back of her chair.

He took the lead, running interference, still holding her hand and pulling her through the crowded ballroom. Aware that every eye was on them, on _**Della**_, he moved with a quick purposefulness toward the commons area outside the grand ballroom, pausing at the entrance just long enough to chart a course for someplace private. He remembered seeing a door in an alcove on the opposite side of the commons area, between two massive, gaudily decorated Christmas trees and he made a beeline for it, Della still trailing behind, almost trotting to keep up with him.

But as they rounded one of the trees, she tugged insistently at his hand, and when he turned to find out what she wanted, her arms slid around his torso and she hugged him tightly. He wrapped his arms around her slender, silk-clad body and buried his face in her hair.

They stood between the Christmas trees in an alcove doorway for several long minutes not saying a word, merely holding one another. Then Perry sighed hugely. "You came home," he breathed, still a bit disbelieving, even though she was most decidedly real and warm and soft in his arms.

"Yes," she whispered. "I came home."

"But why? And how did you get here?"

"I turned in my ticket for a refund and chartered a plane. I had to come home." She realized she had said the same thing before leaving, but now it rang more true to her.

"Della, cashing in your return ticket wouldn't have been enough to charter a private plane." The thought of her emptying her savings account to fly home pained him. He splayed one hand over her tantalizingly bare back and moved the other to grasp her upper arm, holding her just far enough way to be able to peer into her beautiful face

"A check from my brother and cashing in my ticket chartered a private plane." She smiled up at him. "I have a lot to tell you." Beginning with the stunning act of compassion from her brother.

"I think you must have. And we'll have plenty of time to talk during the drive to Utah tomorrow." He laid two fingers across her lips when she would have protested. "Don't you dare say you have an appointment tomorrow, Della Street. We're going to Utah."

"My bags are checked with the hotel concierge. Are you packed?"

"As a matter of fact, I am. I had to do something to occupy my time today."

She snuggled against his chest. "I have a plan. Let's leave tonight. We can park in the desert somewhere and sleep in the car and have pancakes at some ramshackle diner by the side of the road." She thought it was a fitting bookend for the events of the past several weeks that had begun with a trip to the desert.

"Don't you think we're a bit overdressed for sleeping in a car? I wouldn't want that unbelievable dress to get ruined. Besides, the orchestra hasn't begun to play yet. I've been looking forward to holding you in my arms on the dance floor."

"Normally I would love to dance the night away with you, Mr. Mason, but I just spent the most awful four days with the most miserable people on the face of the planet and if we leave tonight it puts me that much closer to normal people."

Perry gave her a lopsided smile. "It must have been awful if you're looking forward to spending time with Bart."

She raised misty eyes to his. "You have no idea how lucky you are," she told him in a throaty whisper.

Perry gently laid her head back on his chest. "I'm aware of how lucky I am, baby," he said huskily, "and it has nothing to do with my brother."

Della fought tears with all she was worth, her face buried in his shirtfront. This was what meant everything to her. It had been worth it, what she'd done and what she'd said to her family at the country club. Los Angeles was her home now. Estelle and Evelyn and Janet, as well as the band of characters in Perry's orbit were her family. And this man, this perfectly imperfect man who held her with fierce tenderness, who smiled at her even when he was annoyed, and who made no bones about the fact he found her beautiful from the inside out, this man could very well be her entire life.

She tilted her head and tried to smile, but the tears were winning. His attempt at a smile was much more successful, which made holding back the tears even harder. Then she caught sight of something green and leafy hanging above his head and her smile blossomed hugely. His eyes followed hers and widened in amused surprise as she pulled him further into the alcove.

"Kisssssseee," she crooned softly. "Kisssssseee the girl."

This time he did.


End file.
